How would you achieve this?

[Monkey Mark]

Ok, this may well be something very easy, however as a begginer I can't work this out. Can any of you enlightened ones help me?

I saw the picture below earlier. I thought it looked very nice. I like the sides that curve in and that's what got me thinking, how is that curve achived?

The only way i can think is on a table saw passed at an angle, but I'm not sure that's the normal/best way.

Anyone care to help a confused me out? :?

 

[dzj]

A curved rip cut on a bandsaw. With a router on a curved sled.
A series of crosscuts on TS by slightly reducing height of cut. With hand tools of the chair-maker's kind or even the regular ones...

 

[AndyT]

For a really comprehensive answer to how to make a chest of drawers with compound curvature, have a read of Derek Cohen's project here building-the-lingerie-chest-t89220.html and on his own website.

I don't think the chest you saw is quite as complicated as Derek's - the shallow drawers could be flat fronted I think, though it's hard to tell from the photos.

So if the main problem is how to make a long shallow hollow in two thick pieces of wood for the sides, the simplest way is probably by hand planing (with a compass plane or violin maker's planes or curved spokeshaves or a chairmaker's shave) followed by careful scraping and sanding.

 

[paulrockliffe]

If I was doing it I'd 'cheat' and make a curved sled for a router, clamp all the drawers together and route the curve into them.

 

[No skills]

I've seen somebody on Instagram doing the curved thing with router sleds.

 

[Monkey Mark]

Hmmm, the router sled sounds like a good idea!

 

[MattRoberts]

It's probably done by a pendulum jig for the router

 

[custard]

Make a template using 9mm or 12mm MDF, make sure it's at least 30mm longer than the curve at each end (to give you a run in and run out section for later on when you're routing), fair off the curve of the template with a spokeshave and check by touch that it really is smooth and fair, and check by eye that it conforms exactly to your full size plan or rod. Use this to pencil the layout onto the two side pieces. Rough cut the side pieces on a bandsaw about one or two mill outside of the pencil line. Cramp the MDF template onto the band sawn blank, so the edge of the template exactly matches the penciled curve. Use a "template trim" router bit (they're the ones with the bearing on the top and/or bottom) to bring the blank down to the final curve.

It might sound tricky but honestly it's just bread and butter furniture making, the real skill is in using a spokeshave to produce a perfectly fair template rather than using the bandsaw or router. There are a few little twists for very large and very small components, but they're not difficult to master either. In most cabinet making workshops today you're churning out so many curved components that you end up drowning in all the MDF templates you produce!

 

[custard]

I didn't realise the sides are also curved in the front view. I'd probably do that by planing across the grain with a heavily cambered blade (you can buy very large hollow and round planes for not a lot of money and they're ideal for an item of this scale) then smoothing it off with a scraper. When planing across the grain like this it makes sense to leave the piece a little wider than required and rip it down to final size after shaping, that removes all the spelching and tear out that you'll get at the far side of the board.

That's how I made the top for the Elm stool in this photo,