An interesting project

bw-waltNo CommentsUncategorized

Hi again!

I know it’s been a while (again) but I’m still here.  I’m just not the writer I thought I was.    Oh well.  Anyway, I got an e-mail recently asking if I could make some corbels for an addition on a house.  Sure, I said.  Send me some pictures of what you’re looking for and I will estimate it.  He sent me this picture.20150910_102139

No Problem, right?

Then he sent me this picture.

20150910_102152OK  Maybe a little problem.  My first thought is, “somebody already did it, so it can be done”  I just didn’t yet know how.  I couldn’t simply tilt my band-saw table as this wouldn’t give me a consistent angle so I knew I would have to make some kind of sled for the saw.  The customer had given me the material to work with.  Turned out to be some ancient pine from a torn down building in his town.  After removing all the hardware and planing it to thickness, I ended up with all my blanks.  I started be cutting the angles on the ends and set to work figuring out my sleds.  That is plural because he needed five cut for each side meaning I would need to make 5 copies and 5 mirror images.

That led me to this point.

20150903_101648This is the sled I made for the first five.  The blank fit into it and I could screw it to the sled and go to cutting.

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Fortunately, I had recently upgraded my band-saw and gotten a new spindle sander.  Without the new band-saw, I would not have been able to cut these pieces.

After each one was cut, I was able to sand the curves on the spindle sander and get the nice and smooth.  Some of them required me to freehand them since the piece was too high to fit.  After fairing the curves, it was over to the bench for some handwork.

20150903_110720Rasps, sandpaper and files evened out the rest of the surfaces nicely.  Once I finally got all 10 cut out and smoothed, I had to fill all the nail holes. (remember when I mentioned removing all the hardware?)  There were also a lot of splits, loose knots and other blemishes to take care of.  I finally ended up with this.

20150908_113145They were picked up yesterday and I am happy to say, the customer was very pleased.  So much so, that he asked for a few business cards and rack cards to hand out to friends.  I hope a few of them make it back to me.