Much to my pleasant surprise, the end grain planed like butter. Beautiful shavings, minimal effort. Because it was so smooth and I had cheap labor available, I didn't even bother pre-mitering the ends at the table saw, just put my son on the miter plane and donkey's ear (the stand that holds the work piece at 45 degrees).






Next came glue, tape, and a lot of shellac. I learned from someone on here that alcohol removes pencil marks, and I am now grateful for that knowledge. I hate shellac. I used it here because it dries fast and doesn't stink, but there is an art to applying it, and I have not acquired that art yet. I did better this time, though. Thinned it out of the can by about 50%, then used a rag instead of a brush. Far fewer streaks than I had on last year's box, though I still ended up with some build-up and runs at the board ends. Not as bad as previous efforts, but it reminded me of why shellac always frustrates me.



Given that I couldn't truly bookmatch it, the corners still flow quite well. The sapwood is busy enough that it obscures the fact that it doesn't truly align.






Anyways, the whole thing going surprisingly fast this time. We spent three hours from the raw plank to the first coat of shellac, and a fair chunk of that was machine set-up. The longest part of the whole thing was planing the miters, and that took about an hour, of which there were several breaks. We put on eight coats of thinned Shellac over the course of the next day on about 30 minute intervals. Came together very quick, and my wife and son both commented on wishing they could keep it.

The most important customer is pretty happy, though, and that's all that really matters: