Wooden roll tops / shutters

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kafkaian

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Anyone ever made these? I am currently designing a PC workstation and office area but would like to shut off all the dust gathering items (folders, box files, books etc) behind a rollable shutter.

Any ideas would be gratefully received.
 
Hi K
Rolltop eh? Imade a rolltop breadbin many years ago. I used paranha pine - big mistake, it stank to high heaven and tainted the bread. Binned it soon afterwards!

However, what I learned from that was:

1. The grooves at each side have to be IDENTICAL mirror images. Make a template jig.

2. Don't make the radii any tighter than absolutely necessary.

Traditionally the tambours themselves aew glued to a canvas backing, but I can't remember the details - presumably animal glue is the trad adhesive. There are better historians than me on here, so maybe one of them can help you further.

Best of luck with it, sounds like an interesting project.

Cheers
Steve
 
I think tambour is the phrase you need. I've never made any, but it's been on the "to try" list for a while. There are various ways of doing them; traditionally it's simply (hah!) a matter of sticking a load of thin slats onto a canvas backing, but nowadays you can get a router cutter (IIRC) that creates a locking T&G effect so you can dispense with the canvas if you want. GWW had an article about them in issue #117 - oh good grief, that's January 2002 :shock: . Erm, Tage Frid has some good info in Vol 3 of Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking (the one no-one ever buys). It's a start anyway.

Cheers, Alf
 
I'm working on a cabinet design including them at the mo for a possible kitchen. There is a Fine Woodworking article that covers it in great detail that typically I can't find right now. As soon as i have I'll post details here.

T
 
Tim may be thinking of an article in Issue 150 from Aug 2001 pages 58-61.

That article deals with making the tambour slats look like solid wood when closed. However the method of building it is more or less universal.
 
Indexing articles is not as nerdy as it sounds. Last night I was looking for an article on a table I remembered reading. Which mag? Couldn't remember. When? No idea. Where was the mag? Office, loft? Shop? cardboard box somewhere. Eventually found it after 2 hours hoking and poking.

Noel
 
waterhead37":tpgzaisq said:
Tim may be thinking of an article in Issue 150 from Aug 2001 pages 58-61.
Darn, didn't remember that one at all; thanks, Chris. The question is will I remember it again when I finally find the Tuit? Noel, 2 hours with a result is good. It's 2 hours and nothing to show for it that gets depressing. :(

Cheers, Alf
 
Indexing the things is a good way of getting my money's worth out of them. Apart from the time saved when looking for that article on <insert subject here> I find that skimming the various articles in sufficient depth to assign sensible keywords and so forth suggests approachs and ideas that didn't necessarily occur the first time around. I guess it's because my frame of mind is "how might this article be useful to me?" rather than, "Oh that's interesting."
 
A traditional alternative to the canvas backer was to mill the slats to have interlocking linear ball and socket ends, each slat secured to thin spring steel straps.. 3 straps across the width was the norm for a rool top desk.
 
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