Large cupcake tower

[guitarwes]

This was a custom design by myself to be used at a wedding reception. Made from .50 mdf and painted a warm glitter gold.
This was a "tuition piece" meaning that I underpriced the job big time in painting labor hours and paid for my learning that in the process.
Measures about 54" to the top of the removable and interchangable letter topper and 42" wide at the base. Holds a little over 200 cupcakes.
It was built with slot together mortise and tenons because it had to be broken down and transported 5 hours away in a small vehicle.

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[Brian Harnett]

I like the break down feature, As for tuition jobs i get a lot of those.

[guitarwes]

Especially when one of the finished painted legs falls off the hanger and breaks 4 days before it was to be picked up. Scrounging to buy more material and good gosh that edge of mdf likes to eat some paint!
And oh yeah, they changed the design of the "O " topper a week before also. :mad:

[bleeth]

For the future MDF edges are easiest when a sealer is used.
You can do shellac, which will soak in and let you sand fuzzies off easily or mix Titebond and water.
Both work better than Kils for example.
Neat piece. I used to do a lot of cutting of knockdown parts for tables for a party rental company and If I were still doing that kind of biz I would suggest this to him.

[JMCS]

Upgrade your MDF! With the HD MDF you will never get a great edge. You can seal it up any way you want, it still won't be that great. Skip the seal step and spend a bit more for a better product. Look for a double or triple refined MDF. Ranger board by West Fraser or Plum Creek by Weyerhauser are excellent product and best of all they do not need there edges sealed up.

https://www.westfraser.com/products/mdf

https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/woodproducts/osb-panels/medium-density-fiberboard/

[guitarwes]

You have no idea how many youtube videos I watched about sealing the edges of MDF before painting this thing because I've never
worked with it much before. Vinyl sealer appears to be the go to for a quick edge seal but no one around here carries it and I didn't
know how much I needed to complete this project. Didn't want to buy too much, didn't want to buy not enough.
I ended up brushing 2 coats of Premium Kilz on it. Put 1 coat of spray Kilz grey primer. 2 coats of spray Rustoleum Warm Gold.
Time consuming to say the least because I had to spray it in sections to try to avoid runs.

[Simon Anderson]

Wow! That's so creative!

[jensen87]

Would you be willing to share a dxf file? My daughter in law is a pasty chef and would love this!