Creating curved beading

[martinearle]

Good morning,

This is my first post here... I enjoy solving problems but this one is beyond me!

I'm making a built in Welsh Georgian style bookcase with panel doors. I want to have a beading on the inside edge of the frame of the door. Ordinarily I can easily achieve this with a router.

The problem is that the top rail is curved with an arch. Again, this is do-able with a router usually. But I can't see how I would do it for the profile I am after.

I've attached a drawing. Is this a hand carving job?

Many thanks for your help!

 

[Jacob]

I'd wonder about making the semi-circular piece of bead as a separate piece to plant on rather than machine direct. Two pieces in fact - to avoid the 90º cross grain at the ends.
Otherwise it's a painstaking hand tool job - scratch stock etc

 

[oakmitre]

What is the radius of the beading circle ?

-- Sorry I mean the beading profile cross-section circle radius.

 

[custard]

Scratch stock would be my choice, that's how the Georgian cabinetmakers would have done the job originally. You could plant the bead as Jacob suggested, and if you're using Oak or some other more brittle timber that's less amenable to a scratch stock (unlike the buttery mahoganies that the Georgian woodworkers had access to) then I could see advantages. The problem with planting is the moulding wants to spring back so you risk little gaps all around the joint. You could make an accurately curved glue block (mucho faff) or pre-bend the moulding around a hot pipe (you'll never get it spot on but you'll get fairly close). However, if you're reasonably competent with a scratch stock it's a five minute job so that's the way I'd probably go. Incidentally you could use a scratch stock for the moulding on the arched section but plant the beads on the stiles and lower rail.

The workshop where I trained used to apply a signature gun stock moulding with a scratch stock, it would run up a leg then around a curve and join an apron, therefore very similar to what you're talking about. It was the last item on the worksheet before finishing, so if you messed up it would ruin hundreds of hours of work, the trick was a freshly sharpened blade and very light initial strokes with the scratch stock until the moulding was established. At least you're taking about a replaceable component with the operation conducted before the glue up, so the price of failure isn't too high...although with careful preparation you won't fail!

Nice project by the way.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I've not come across a gun stock moulding. What sort of shape is it, please - I don't seem to get very far googling it.

 

[custard]

I've not come across a gun stock moulding. What sort of shape is it, please - I don't seem to get very far googling it.

The red arrows point to examples, extra material is left on the components and the moulding is shaped with a scratch stock after assembly. I think the description relates to how its worked more than the actual profile itself.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Thanks, that's pretty much what I thought.
Ps. when I win the lottery, you can make my furniture.

 

[custard]

Ps. when I win the lottery, you can make my furniture.

I wish I'd made that piece but unfortunately I didn't. It was made forty years ago, mainly with hand tools by a group of craftsmen with a lifetime of top flight experience behind them. It's made from English Walnut of a quality that you'll find only a few times in your entire career. I think from memory there's something like two thousand hours of work in it.

 

[martinearle]

Thanks so much for you useful replies. I've never used a scratch stock before and look forward to having a go. I use routers quite a lot but don't enjoy it very much. Too fast, noisy and aggressive for fine work!

I was planning to make the piece in redwood... do scratch stocks work ok with softwoods? Would I make a sort of scratch stock compass to get the curve?

 

[dzj]

If you have a lathe, such beading could be made by mitering pieces of stock and fastening them
to a piece of mdf attached to a faceplate. Then just turn the required molding.