xy mosian
Established Member
Needing a curved door panel I took a seemingly scratty piece of softwood. Actually a piece from a replaced soffit fixed to the house in 1972 ish.
And planed the surfaces, roughly, with an old 4 1/2. Not much can be said to be 'true' on this plane but it works a treat, in spite of the wrong handle.
Then I split the wood, roughly 26" x 6" (660mm x 150mm) with the coarsest rip saw I have. It doesn't shine and sparkle but does a good job with its 3 1/2 teeth to the inch.
Fifteen minutes later and there we have two panels. A hint of nice figuring there.
The edge of one of the panels is gauge marked for thickness, bevelled and pencilled to make seeing the depth of planing easier. Of course if this is done on all four sides we have, a fielded panel, perfectly good enough in a hidden situation.
Planing the panel to thickness using the 4 1/2 again. I had intended using my number 5 but found the extra heft of the 4 1/2 useful. Note the old 3/4" (18mm) chipboard bench, it mat not be flat but I've never had a problem with it. The planing stop is a piece of 4mm ply clamped to the end of the bench, I'm aiming at 6mm for the panel thickness.
After giving the panel a good soaking in water to make it plyable it is clamped in the bending jig.
End view of bending jig to show the amount of curve achieved. I didn't measure that just took it as far as it would go before I thought it would split. :lol:
Edges shot and glued. It is difficult to clamp a curved shape like this so I relied on using masking tape on the rubbed joint. The tape has a slight elasticity and so adds some, slight, clamping pressure.
This last shot was intended to show the bookmatched grain, but in fact you can see it more easily in the previous image. One thing to remember, in bookmatched panels the grain shifts 180 degrees along the line of the joint. This makes planing very difficult, especially in softwood.
Not a bad panel from a 'free' scratty piece of wood.
xy
And planed the surfaces, roughly, with an old 4 1/2. Not much can be said to be 'true' on this plane but it works a treat, in spite of the wrong handle.
Then I split the wood, roughly 26" x 6" (660mm x 150mm) with the coarsest rip saw I have. It doesn't shine and sparkle but does a good job with its 3 1/2 teeth to the inch.
Fifteen minutes later and there we have two panels. A hint of nice figuring there.
The edge of one of the panels is gauge marked for thickness, bevelled and pencilled to make seeing the depth of planing easier. Of course if this is done on all four sides we have, a fielded panel, perfectly good enough in a hidden situation.
Planing the panel to thickness using the 4 1/2 again. I had intended using my number 5 but found the extra heft of the 4 1/2 useful. Note the old 3/4" (18mm) chipboard bench, it mat not be flat but I've never had a problem with it. The planing stop is a piece of 4mm ply clamped to the end of the bench, I'm aiming at 6mm for the panel thickness.
After giving the panel a good soaking in water to make it plyable it is clamped in the bending jig.
End view of bending jig to show the amount of curve achieved. I didn't measure that just took it as far as it would go before I thought it would split. :lol:
Edges shot and glued. It is difficult to clamp a curved shape like this so I relied on using masking tape on the rubbed joint. The tape has a slight elasticity and so adds some, slight, clamping pressure.
This last shot was intended to show the bookmatched grain, but in fact you can see it more easily in the previous image. One thing to remember, in bookmatched panels the grain shifts 180 degrees along the line of the joint. This makes planing very difficult, especially in softwood.
Not a bad panel from a 'free' scratty piece of wood.
xy
