Today I trimmed several of the hood arches and tested the routering of the moulded arches. The moulding worked but I want to come up with a better way to hold the pieces while routing them. That's it in my workshop until Monday of next week as we have numerous visitors for our Thanksgiving feast! Click on photos to enlarge and enjoy!
0 Comments
I made the top and bottom cuts on the 6 pieces that comprise the front arch. One of the pieces, layer 2, got caught in the bit and broke-up. Not sure I can salvage it, but I'll see. If not, I'll make another. The layers cut consistently as I had hoped so will only require a good sanding to make them look great. Each of them still needs to be trimmed to length and the two top [front] pieces need to be routered to make the moulding. Behind these arch layers on the clock case hood will be slats that will be mitered and rabbeted into the front and back arch, with the back arch being what you will see from behind. It should look good although I don't know anyone tall enough to see my craftsmanship. I've included a number of photos in the slideshow below. Enjoy! I'm taking the weekend off from my clock-making to be with my grandkids! Meanwhile, my son-in-law has returned to my workshop to work on his bird houses. I thought you might like to see a photo. Click to enlarge.
I know this sounds incredibly boring, but today I glued-up blanks 5 and 6 [front moulding] for the hood front arch. My grandkids are coming down for the weekend, so I will make ALL of the front arch cuts on Monday! Stay tuned! Click on photo to enlarge.
In yesterday's blog I mentioned that I had made the first of many arches for the hood. Since 6 of the 9 required arches are layered one in front of the other, I have decided that it would be best to cut them all at the same time. By that I mean set the distance for the top of the arch on the jig and cut each of the blanks; then, set the distance for the bottom of the arch and again cut each of the pieces. In this way, I should be ensuring that ALL of the arch layers will have precisely identical radii and thus will stack, or layer, as if one continuous piece. Anyway, that's my theory. So the piece I cut yesterday will form the back arch. And the 6 pieces I will cut, as described above, will form the layered front arches. Why so many front arch layers? Here is the breakdown [not counting the mask and the door]:
Today I picked up a longer 1/2" straight bit and began testing arch-building on a piece of pine. All worked well. So, I built one of the support arches. Had to stop there as it was the only "blank" wide enough to give me the 8" radius. So, I then biscuited and glued-up some "blank" extension pieces that would give me the required 8" radius. Since I only have two good glue clamps, I only glued two "blanks". Tomorrow, I will cut the arches on the two and glue-up some more "blanks". BTW in case you have been wondering, I don't have an expected completion date for the clock but the end of January would be nice. Other than putting oil and wax on it, all the remaining effort is on the hood. Enjoy the slideshow below! Today I made-up 8 "blanks". Each will be used to build a layer of arch for the hood. In addition, my circle-maker jig arrived tonight and it looks like it will work. I'll need to get a longer 1/2" straight bit before I begin testing. But I do expect to get testing tomorrow. Click on photos to enlarge.
Today I planed two large pieces of walnut lumber. Tomorrow I expect to true-up and cut that lumber so that I can make "blanks" for the arches. I will still need to biscuit and glue-up these pieces in order to get the required radius of the arches which run from 5" to 8". Stay tuned! Meanwhile, I received an email informing me that the circle-maker jig that I ordered is on the way. Click on photos to enlarge.
While I have no photos to show you today, I did make some progress. I decided to not rely solely on the band saw for the numerous arches that I need for the clock case hood. The band saw will only be used to get me a rough cut and for some finishing cuts. The actual arches will be made using a circle-maker jig mounted on the router table with a straight bit. I want the arches to be very precise and I know this method will give me that precision. I ordered the jig today and expect to have it Friday. Meanwhile, tomorrow I will plane-down two more boards and begin to make the "blanks" that will be used for the arches. Believe it or not, there are 7 arch layers plus the mask and the door. So, many to be cut. I know relying on just the band saw would be very frustrating as it simply would not be a clean, precise cut. I'll follow-up with an update tomorrow! BTW, my grandson made his own hand-made compass this past weekend - similar to the one I made in an earlier blog.
Today I sanded the 2nd hood side and put both the sides aside. Then I setup the band saw and tested that out. The pieces I cut on this will need a lot of work - mostly sanding. Then, I went back to my design plans and reviewed the next-step which is to build the support arches for the hood top. You may recall back when I was building the large cove moulding, that I concluded that there are no economical router bits that big. So the answer was to use a 100-year-old $30 hand cove plane. Recently, I have had a similar dilemma. I needed a large drawing compass and couldn't find any anywhere that were large enough. So I started looking for buckets and lamp shades, etc. I had even tried to pick up what is called a beam compass. But neither Lowes nor Home Depot had that either. So, today I made my own out of a strip of wood, a screw and measured holes. It took about 20 minutes. This is EXACTLY how it would have been done 100 years ago. I have 4 arch sizes. And now I have a customized measuring stick that will give me all 4 of the arches.
My grandkids and several of my children arrive for the weekend so no more work until Monday when I begin making the support arches. click on photos to enlarge. Thanks for visiting! |
AuthorI hope that you enjoy keeping up with my clock's progress! Archives
June 2016
Categories |