A wee problem...

[Orcamesh]

Hi folks

My father-in-law (also a woodworking nerd) is visiting us at the moment and he brought his current woodworking problem with him, how kind!!! He's making a chest of drawers out of ash and whilst making the frame (frame+panel construction) he ran into this problem. He was routing by hand a stopped groove for one of the side panels, so he was routing one of the legs. Whilst pushing the router along the leg the side fence of the router somehow hit the workbench and the bit veered off and through the part of the leg he wanted to keep! Yes, I know, I know.

My suggestion is to mount the leg part on a horizontal table of the Woodrat and clamp it so that you can wind the leg left & right under the router in order to cut out the broken part of the leg. On the Rat the router bit can be plunged in view so that only the parts you want to remove are removed. Then make a thin wall section to glue back into the leg to complete the groove for the side panel. Unfortunately it will be seen as it is an external part of the leg.

Does anyone have any other great ideas?

Thanks
Steve

 

[RogerP]

With a patch it's the ends that show worst. If he some of the ash left I'd route out the entire edge a fit a piece the whole length. With care and the providing grain is the same it will be all but invisible.

 

[AndyT]

With a patch it's the ends that show worst. If he some of the ash left I'd route out the entire edge a fit a piece the whole length. With care and the providing grain is the same it will be all but invisible.

I think that's a really sound idea! Noted and filed away just in case...

 

[Orcamesh]

Thanks Roger, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, plus easier to rout the whole edge on a router table. Finding the right piece of ash may be a problem, but either way I think this is a much better suggestion.
cheers
Steve

 

[Orcamesh]

Just wanted to mention that we managed to fix the leg by routing out the corner along the whole length of the leg. This went through the tapered end (floor end) of the leg but after gluing in another strip of ash and subsequent planing it didn't look too bad. Obviously not as good as if the problem hadn't occurred in the first place but there you go. We then re-routed the groove for the panel on my router table and thank goodness balance is now restored in the universe! Sorry, forgot to take a photo of the final thing.

Thanks again for your help
Steve