After roughing out the legs on the band saw, the next step in the process was to turn and shaping the feet and to smooth the faces of the legs so that they could be marked out for shaping. This past weekend I worked on these steps.
The feet were turned on a my lathe after marking the rough legs for center on each end. Because the template that was used as a pattern for the legs was as wide as finished legs (i.e. not offset within the blanks) the centers were marked directly on the ends of each leg. The legs were mounted on the lathe with the foot toward the tail stock so that there was no chance in hitting the drive center when turning the feet. The tool rest was positioned so that the foot could be turned without the leg contacting it while it was spinning. Because of the offset shape of the legs, there was some whip as the legs turned so, I turned them at the lowest speed on my lathe, which is about 500 RPM.
The first step in turning the foot was to turn a cylinder down to the desired outside diameter. I marked a line at the top if the toe and then turned in slightly at that point with the long point of my skew chisel to define the top edge of the toe. Next, I started to rough in with a spindle gouge for the outer diameter of the foot. After turning in a little bit with the gouge, I needed to relieve a bit of the back of the ankle portion of the leg with a chisel so that the gouge would be able to reach where I needed it i order to to finish turning the foot. Now it was a simple matter of turning to the desired outer diameter of 2 3/4″.
Once the outer diameter was turned, a smaller diameter needed to be turned for the pad of the foot. I marked out for the pad with a pencil at about 1/8″ up from the bottom of the foot. When looking at foot at this point it seemed like height of the foot from the pad up to the toe was too large so, I also marked a line where I thought the toe should stop. I then proceeded to turn the pad of the foot to 1 3/4″ in diameter with a parting tool.
With the foot diameters now roughed in, it now needed to be turned from the toe down to the pad. I did this with a spindle gouge, gradually shaping the curve until I liked the shape. I also sanded the foot to 220 grit while on the lathe. At this point I created a small template of this turned foot by tracing its outline onto some paper and cutting it out. This template was used to match the other three feet to this first one. You can see in the picture that I also used the point of the skew chisel to define the new top of the toe. I removed this leg and then turned all three of the other legs to this point following the same procedure. Once the turning was competed, I paused to contemplate the next steps in the process.
After thinking about what was next in the process, I realized that to shape the foot down to the new toe line that I had defined, there would be a significant amount of material that would need to be removed. This would need to be done while trying to maintain the graceful curve from the ankle to the top of the foot, which I thought would be difficult to do consistently on all four legs. I thought this through and finally decided to trust my original template and to keep the foot dimensions as originally designed. This required me to re-mount each leg on the lathe and to remove the skewed line that I added and to also re-fair the curve from the toe to the pad. In the pictures you can see the finished turned feet.
Now that the feet were turned, some rough shaping was necessary to transition the ankles to the them and to remove some excess material from their sides. I started this by shaping the tops of the feet using the oscillating spindle sander. The large drum on this tool made quick work of this allowing me to rough a gentle curve from the ankle to the foot while keeping a nice crisp line at the top of the toe. There was still some excess material to remove around the sides of the feet so, now it was time to do some hand work.
In order to work on the legs by hand I needed a secure way to hold them. In the picture, you can see my solution using some clamps at the bench. I decided to try a Microplane to rasp around the sides of the feet close to the skewed edge of the toe. So far this tool seems to work well. It leaves a very nice surface – even with the rough blade I’m using at this point – and it creates small shavings rather than dust, which is nice. I’m hopeful that it will work just as well with the fine blades when I shape the remaining portions of the legs.
After the rough rasping, I needed to smooth the surfaces of the legs so that they could be marked for final shaping. I did this with a block plane and a card scraper, smoothing from the knees down to about the top of the ankles. Once smooth, using a pencil with my middle finger as a gauge I drew a line from the center of the ankle along the front edge of the leg and then again along the back edge of the leg. With those two lines drawn, I repeated the process drawing another line about 5/7th of the way from the edges of the leg to the first set of lines. These lines will serve to guide me during the next process of shaping the curves of the legs by hand.
As always, if you have comments or questions, please either leave theme here with the comments link at the end of the post, or email me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com.
Tags: cabriole leg, foot, lathe, shaping, woodlathe, Woodturning
In my last post I wrote about a lecture by Gene Landon that I recently attended which inspired me to try to do a period furniture piece. The piece that I will be building (and writing about here over the near term) is a side table from the Queen Anne period with beautiful cabriole legs and a single drawer.
This table is modeled after one done by Glen Huey of Popular Woodworking in the fall of 2004. As seen in the picture, Glen’s table is a nice example of Queen Anne styling with graceful legs and scroll work along the aprons. I have never done any hand shaped legs of this sort before nor have I done a period furniture reproduction. So, this project will be an interesting challenge in learning new styles and honing new skills.
To begin the project I determined what lumber I would need and set off to find the right stock. I knew that finding the correct stock, thick enough for the legs would be a challenge. I did not want to laminate the stock for them so, that was a priority. I went to a new local hardwood supplier G.W. Woods Inc. to see what was available there. I met the owner, Greg Wolfe and discussed what I had in mind. Greg showed me to a nice selection of 12/4 and 16/4 Cherry for the legs – these needed to be surfaced to 2 3/4″ square before any further cutting and shaping. I also found some nice 4/4 Cherry for the top, the drawer and the aprons. In addition, I brought home a piece of 4/4 curly maple that I was thinking of using for the drawer front, but I am not sure that I want to deviate from the typical characteristics of the Queen Anne period by mixing species so, that may get saved for a future project.
To get started I needed to create a template for the legs that could be used to transfer a consistent pattern to each leg blank prior to cutting them out on the band saw. I did this by drawing the pattern onto a piece of 1/4″ hardboard and cutting close to the pattern lines with the band saw. There are two pieces to the template, the main leg, and a small shoulder extension for the top under the aprons that is glued on and shaped later. Once these template pieces were rough cut, I smoothed all of the curves with a file and sanding block so that when transfered to the leg blanks the lines would all flow nicely.
Next, I had layout the leg cuts and rip the stock down to rough dimensions. I typically do this on my band saw as there is no risk of kickback with rough pieces. This also allows me to get the stock closer to finished dimensions before squaring it up with the jointer and planer – the benefit here is that if there is any bow or twist in the stock, it is more minimal when the pieces are shorter and therefore less stock is lost during the milling process.
Once the legs were ripped to size, I spent some time at the jointer and planer getting the stock to a finished 2 3/4″ square dimension. 
I did this in the typical fashion – first flattening a face and then squaring an adjacent edge on the jointer, then running the stock through the planer using those flat faces as a reference to obtain perfectly square leg blanks. Next, I cut the legs to length and saved the offcuts to use for the leg shoulder extensions later. At this point, it was time to transfer the patterns to the legs. This was done by tracing along the template on adjacent faces of the leg blanks. The important detail here was to do this so that the knees of the pattern meet at a corner of the leg. It is also typically desirable to have the growth rings of the leg running diagonal toward that corner – this gives the shaped leg nice straight grain instead of a series of concentric ovals. I tried to orient them for this detail as best I could while avoiding sapwood and other minor defects in the stock.
With the patterns transferred to the legs, it was now the moment of truth – time to cut out the legs. It was a bit nerve racking doing this for the first time after all of the time prepping and milling this stock – not to mention not wanting to make a mistake potentially ruining relatively expensive stock. I checked and double-checked the layout and decided it was time to give it a go. 
The first step was actually a cut at the shoulder just where the knee intersects the vertical post on the legs. This was done on the table saw with a stop block clamped to the fence behind the blade – this registered each cut at exactly the same location. This cut was made on the two faces that had the pattern traced onto them and only deep enough to intersect the vertical post portions of the legs. Next, it was time for cutting the curves on the band saw. 
The key to doing this was to cut the pattern on two adjacent faces of the leg blank while keeping the leg square so that the second face can be cut after the first. To do this I cut just outside of the pattern lines – on both the knee and back edges – on the first face leaving a little bridge so that face would remain intact during the cuts for the second face. The piece above the knee is too small to do this, so it was cut completely off and then temporarily reattached with some hot melt glue. Once all of this was done, the piece was rotated 90 degrees and the second face was cut completely through. All than remained was to go back to the first face and cut through the bridges and then to pop off the piece temporarily glued above the knee.
All of the prep work paid off, the rough legs turned out fine. The graceful shape of the cabriole leg is roughed in and ready for the next step in the process which will be turning the foot pads on the lathe and then shaping and smoothing the curves with rasps, files and scrapers. More new skills to hone!
Until then, and as always, if you have comments or questions, please either leave theme here with the comments link at the end of the post, or email me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com.
Tags: band saw, cabriole leg, pattern, Queen Anne, template
Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to a talk given by Gene Landon for the Rochester Woodworkers Society. Gene is a world famous woodworker specializing in 18th Century American furniture reproductions. He has been featured in Fine Woodworking many times over the years and also teaches woodworking classes at the Old Mill Cabinet Shoppe in York, PA.
Gene’s talk was a photo tour of his home and wood shop in Pennsylvania. His home is filled with period furniture reproductions as well as raised panels and intricate trim work adorning the walls, all built by Gene in the 31 years that he and his wife have been there. The furniture pieces range from a spice box and a candle stand to numerous chairs, clocks, tables and case goods. All of the furniture was reproduced after taking careful measurements and rubbings from originals. Gene has done period reproductions of many styles, including both Newport and Philadelphia though he gravitates to the Philadelphia pieces because he feels that they represent the best from the 18th century.
Gene learned about the way these historic pieces were originally built from previously doing hundreds of restorations. As a result, his building methods are all authentic to the way the pieces were originally done. In his words: “if you are going to copy, you should copy the original methods as well as the designs”. In his work Gene only will only do a bit of roughing out with machine tools, everything else is done by hand. For finishes, he typically uses only shellac and sometimes a bit of boiled linseed oil. However, if a piece needs to be darkened he will use a stain made from soaking Walnut husks in water for some time until a dark pigment is obtained.
It was only after seeing Gene’s house full of beautiful furniture – something that would probably take the average woodworker five lifetimes to create, even with power tools – that I found out that not only was he doing those pieces for his home but, he was also doing commissions all along at the same time. He says that he always has several projects going in the shop at one time – that’s a situation that I’m sure most of us can relate to, though achieving the level of production that he has is another story. One great quote from Gene was: “I run out of gas before I run out of enthusiasm” – as far as I can see, he seems to still be going strong!
Gene is a long time contributor to the Society of American Period Furniture Makers (SAPFM) and helped to establish it’s Cartouche Award – an award that recognizes an individual or organization whose achievements best reflect the mission of SAPFM – in fact the award itself is a bronze of the carved crown from a Philadelphia tall case clock that Gene built. After helping to establish the award, Gene was a honored as a recipient in 2003.
In addition to his furniture making, Gene is also an accomplished carver/sculptor. He showed a magnificent carved eagle that he has created out of part of the last living Liberty Tree – a Tulip Poplar that stood during the Revolution. The eagle is now displayed in Constitution Hall in Philadelphia and will eventually go to the Smithsonian. Gene has also built Bible boxes for both President Carter and President George W. Bush. Also from the Liberty tree, Gene carved busts of Presidents Washington and Lincoln and these were recently presented to President Bush at the White House.
As I stated earlier, Gene has been teaching at the Old Mill Cabinet Shoppe for the last 15 years. He continues to do so, teaching there about 12 times a year. All of his classes stress the traditional methods of work and concentrate on period reproductions. Though I have not done any period furniture in the past, taking a class with Gene is something that I’d really like to do at some point in the future. In fact, after hearing Gene’s talk and seeing his work and accomplishments, I am inspired to try a period piece. Coming up I’ll be doing just that and posting here on a new project: a Pennsylvania Side Table with Cabriole legs. So, look for it in the near future.
As always, if you have comments or questions, please either leave theme here with the comments link at the end of the post, or email me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com.
Tags: Gene Landon, period furniture, Rochester Woodworkers Society
Lately, I have not had as much time in the shop as I would like. Lots of outdoor chores and other duties have been taking precedence. I did get a bit of time though, and decided to make a couple of small boxes out of some offcuts, using a nice piece of curly maple for the tops that I have had hanging around the shop for a while.
The boxes were made from Cherry offcuts with Walnut for the splines and handles and the aforementioned Curly Maple for the tops. The bottoms were cut from some Poplar that I had left over from some drawers on a prior case piece.
The boxes measure approximately 3.5″ high by 9″ wide by 3.5″ deep. The sides for each box were cut from a single piece of stock so that the grain on the sides runs continuously around each box. The mitered corners were all cut with a shop built miter sled on the table saw. The tops and bottoms fit into grooves cut into the sides on the table saw. The top pieces have a simple rebate and the bottoms were beveled with a block plane to fit into these grooves.
After the tops, bottoms and all of the sides were cut, all of the parts were sanded so that the inside faces would be ready for finish after assembly. This would be difficult to do afterward. The sides were laid out against my table saw rip fence and taped tightly together along each miter seam with masking tape. Then, glue was applied to the miters. The tops and the bottoms were inserted (no glue, just floating) and the sides were folded around them to form the box. After checking for square, the last miter seam was taped and the box glue-ups were left to dry.
Once the glue was dry, the groves were cut for the Walnut splines to reinforce the mitered corners. Because the mitered corners are mainly end grain, this glue bond is not very strong. So, adding splines really helps to reinforce these joints by adding some long-grain glue surface. The groves for the splines were cut using a shop made sled for the table saw. The Walnut that I used for the splines was planed with a block plane to fit into the grooves. Once a good fit was achieved, it was cut into triangular pieces which were glued into the grooves. After the glue had dried the splines were trimmed flush with a sharp chisel.
The box tops were cut off with the band saw between the top two splines and the cut areas were cleaned up with a block plane. I next measured for the hinges in the tops and bottoms and cut the hinge mortises with a sharp chisel. For the the box handles, I decided to use a couple of little pieces of Walnut and to do some simple carving leaving them with rough tooled surface. These handles were simply glued on to the outsides of the boxes with no other fasteners or joinery. To complete the construction, the boxes were sanded through 220 grit.
For a finish, I wet sanded in a couple of coats of Watco Danish Oil (natural) with 600 grit wet/dry paper. The oil was wiped on, sanded in, wiped off and left to dry. After the second coat of oil had dried I used some Zinsser Seal Coat Shellac on the inside of the boxes to seal in the oil and eliminate any oil smells in the future. The exterior of the boxes received three coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal thinned 50/50 with naptha, wiped on and scuffed sanded with 400 grit paper between coats.
These boxes were fun to do and got me a little time in the shop. Sometimes these small projects are nice to do as a break from large furniture efforts. They go together fairly quickly and allow you to use up nice scraps of wood that you have been saving for a rainy day. These boxes are themselves twins and they will be going to my twin daughters to keep some of their treasures in.
I’d enjoy hearing what you think about the boxes and the web site – good and bad. Please let me know your thoughts – you can contact me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com or leave comments here using the comments link at the end of the post.
Tags: cherry, curly maple, splined keyed miter, walnut, wooden boxes
Recently, there was an ad placed in one of our local papers about a sale of tools and lumber from a woodworking shop. Given that the address listed in the ad was not too far from my home, I thought I’d make the short trip there to see what was available. So, early last Saturday morning that’s what I did.
My hopes in making this trip were that there might be some unusually good deals to be had on tools or hardwood lumber. I usually hear about these kinds of things after they have already passed or when I am not available to visit them. So, I was excited to be able to go and see what great deals there might be. Driving there, I was not sure of the circumstances of this sale – I thought that it could be a liquidation of a woodworking business that had closed it’s doors.
When I arrived at the address along a rural country road, I saw a house surrounded by thick woods with several outbuildings on the property. I thought to myself that maybe someone had a woodworking business that they ran out of their house, but were retiring or something. I walked down the driveway and followed the signs around the side of the house and down through a Bilco door into the basement. When I entered, I saw what looked like a typical home woodworkers basement shop.
In the first room that I entered, there were tools laid out on tables and several racks of various types of hardwood lumber neatly stacked all along one side. As I continued, I saw a shop made router table, some hand saws and also some hand-held power tools. I decided that I would pass through the entire shop first to get a feel for what was there and then go back to look closer at things of interest. Moving on into the second room of the shop, I saw an assortment of stationary power tools, shop made jigs, clamps, and hanging cabinets. Above a desk in the room there were clippings of furniture pictures from magazines that presumably were inspirations for future projects. Looking around, I could see the evidence of many years of woodworking in just about every corner of the shop.
As I continued to wander through the shop looking at the tools, wood and jigs, I overheard some conversations regarding the circumstances of the sale. It turns out that this was the home workshop of a lifelong woodworker that had recently passed away. His daughters were utilizing the services of a friend to help liquidate his shop. This woodworking gentleman had milled his own lumber and even had a dehumidification kiln in one of the outbuildings on the property where he had dried his own wood. I was told that he had a long history of making beautiful things out of wood for their home. Looking at the shop made jigs and cabinets, it was evident that this man had a passion for working with wood and took great pride in his work.
As I continued my tour of the shop, my thoughts drifted away from the specific things for sale and onto the legacy of this woodworker that I had never known. I couldn’t help but think of the countless hours that must have been spent enjoying the craft in that basement shop, the jigs that were precisely made and the wood that was skillfully dried for projects to come. At the same time, it was both sad to see the dismantling of this shop but uplifting to hear about the legacy that this man had left behind in the things he had made for his family and friends.
I would imagine that a love of the craft and the legacy of our creations is a common bond that connects all woodworkers, whether professional or amateur. What’s interesting is that I went on this trip expecting to see and obtain certain material things but, in the end I saw and acquired something else. Something on a completely different level.
I did end up buying a couple of things from this sale but, I went home with something both material and something intangible. I saw both the tools and the legacy of a woodworker who obviously loved what he did and did what he loved. Hopefully, I’ll be able to carry that legacy forward in projects of my own while using a few tools from this woodworker that I had never known.
