A new stand for my friend Neil.

My good friend Neil recently asked me to build him a stand for a great little juniper he has on his benches. He really liked the stand below that I had made for our friend and bonsai teacher Matt but it wouldn't be a good match for his tree.

Below is Neil's juniper.

After a few phone calls with Neil and a few sketches we came up with the final design. The design for this stand will be similar to the stand I made for Matt in that the top of this stand will be "floating". I will support the top to the frame base with dowels and I decided to add movement to the lower part of the stand with arched stretchers in the base. Here are a few progression shots of the stand as I was building it. In this picture all the parts have been rough cut & sanded. The lower frame has been glued and the top frame has had the groove cut that will hold the top of the stand.

Here the top frame of the stand has been glued & the stretchers have all been hand shaped.

With all the parts sanded the glue up began. Below is a picture of the arched stretchers glued into the stand legs.

The last picture is of the lower frame with the top sitting on it. The dowels will raise the top by roughly 1/2" and will be added after the first coat of stain has been applied. The staining will be done over the next few days so updated pictures will be posted soon.

Thanks for looking.

~ Jay