A short tour of some of my tricks for building the cradled wood panels I use as painting supports (see additional videos for tips on priming or mounting linen!).
I am not including a full step-by-step description here, as it’s pretty well covered in the video, but please feel free to post any questions in the comments section.
While I now have fancy tools, I've been doing this for years and used to manage it with a mediocre saw (and no saw stand), no table, no vice, and only a few clamps. If your cuts are clean (including miter angle precision) and you're feeling industrious, you can definitely get it done one edge at a time rather than pre-building/joining the cradle corners, and moving your clamps after each section dries. You'll definitely want a carpenter's square for this. I use my Grandpa's. :) Also, I’ve never had a panel saw so I need to have someone else cut up the plywood: you can have your birch rough-cut at the lumber yard since you’re going to be trimming off those nasty edges anyway with the router. The one item you really can't get away without (for this particular methodology) is that laminate trimmer (mine's a Bosch, about $100) and the flush-trim bit (about $30). But keep in mind you'll make up that spending by building about two large panels rather than buying them!
Here's a list of the minimum tool requirements (i.e. art student version) vs. what I have now replaced these with and would, ideally, recommend (in addition to the obvious items such as wood glue):
Older Craftsman miter saw that is hard to square —> Dewalt miter saw with milled base (easy to square each time), on a saw stand with extendable supports
Whatever blade came with your saw —> 80 tooth carbide tip blade
5 clamps —> as many clamps as you can afford
Carpenter’s square —> framing vice
friend to stand on your panel on the curb —> a sturdy table plus two large speed clamps for clamping panel to it during routing
Sandpaper from the sale bin wrapped around a piece of wood —> electric sander and a good stash of 150 and 220
Hold your breath while shellacing or only do it outside, standing upwind, in intervals—> get a high quality respirator
A couple of other helpful tips:
Make sure both axes of your saw are squared, particularly if you are not using a framing vice, since that miter cut will partially determine the squareness of your corners.
Make sure your saw and your miter blade are sharp. If this latter gets dull, it will pull splinter-like chips out of your panel surface when going across the grain and this makes a very annoying texture on the edges of your painting surface.
If you don’t want divets on the back of your panel from the clamps, just slip a wood scrap between the clamp foot and the soft poplar. I go through phases of caring about this…or not.
DO NOT inhale wood putty dust (or any dust) from sanding! At the very least, get a dust mask.
Don’t ever worry about messing around with solvents to clean your shellac brush. Just let it dry. Next time you’re ready to work, put the brush in the shellac several hours ahead of time and it will re-liquify and be good a new.
The choice to shellac the front of the panel is an individual one. I personally do not, because I am always sealing it with my priming material/ground.
HAVE FUN!