Cove cutting with table saw?

Re: Cove cutting with table saw?

Barry Irby

Are you talking about using your TS blade to cut a Cove?

Done it many times.

I tilt the blade toward the piece maybe ten or fifteen degrees and use whatever blade I have on the saw. Often a Forrest WWII. Sometimes I use a smaller blade to get the cove I want. You have to look at the blade across the table and play with the depth and angle and tilt. You don't really need the tilt but it helps cut with the tops of the teeth rather than the side. You can get symmetrical of asymmetrical coves.

I clamp a board across the table at the angle as a fence. Then slide the pieces of stock over and over as I raise the blade in very small increments.

I use scrapers and a ROS to smooth the inside of the cove.

Be very careful. It gets boring. The blade seems to appear out of nowhere from under the stock. Don't trail any fingers.

Re: Cove cutting with table saw?

Keith Newton

Better than the saw blade, is a 3 blade molding cutter like the one I traded from you last year. With a thumbnail or rounded end shape, you can take a lot more wood with each pass, and end up with a better finish.

Re: Cove cutting with table saw?

Bruce, a MN Galoot

I prefer a rip blade. I have Freud combination and rip blades and the rip blade gives a much better finish that requires minimum sanding. The combo blade left a zillion little ridges that took a lot of work to sand out.

Use a parallelogram cove setting jig

Dick Coers

Make and use a jig to set your angle. Lots of info including youtube on making and using.

Re: Use a parallelogram cove setting jig

John lucas

I draw the covenand waste away most if the wood with straight cuts raising the blade and moving the fence between each cut. I dont remember using anything but my fine tooth blade for the final.cut.

I would like to know how many of you responders

Keith Newton

Have ever tried anything other than a saw blade for this task? Please respond if you have, but then went BACK to a saw blade because you thought it easier or better?

First, I’d like to point out that every saw blade I’ve ever seen had a point geometry for cutting on top, with a sharpness angle on the side of the teeth of near 90*, maybe 85*. Think about using a chisel with that wide an angle. I think a straight screw driver would work equally well.

When the old Sears Craftsman molding cutter with 3 blades 1” wide is tilted over to 20-30*, and the board is fed Diagonally across There is about 3/4” of the top of those 3 blades with a decent sharpness angle, doing an easy shearing cut diagonally across the grain, producing nice big flakes.

It only takes two passes to remove almost all of the waste on maybe a 3” cove, with one more skim cut to produce a clean face that doesn’t require nearly as much sanding as a saw blade leaves.

It’s best if the top, or highest point of the tilted edge is rounded over rather than a sharp corner. These blades are easy to re-grind. I use a spray machinest dye, with a little piece of Tough plastic packing Cut for a pattern then scratched with an awl then grind to The mark, then sharpen.

Unimportant

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Blade unimportant. I figured out how to calculate angle to achieve desired width and depth, and described how to cut the flats to tilt the cove to make it stick out from case more of less. I probably posted this information.

example of  asymmetric cove

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

By changing these angles the relation of the cove to the case can be changed. Also this technique enables the cove to be made from 4/4 lumber and a waste backer.

I don't think anyone doubts...

John in NM

That a molding or cove cutter works better - a lot better. Many of us use a regular blade because this is an occasional task - I haven't needed to do it in more than the last 5 years. If you are doing this 2-3 times a year, probably it would be worth investing in the CMT cutter or something similar.

I view it a lot like a dado set. I need that on the saw often enough that the $200+ price tag didn't scare me off.

Why not buy a Williams & Hussey

Dick Coers

It's even faster than a Craftsman molding head.

Re: I would like to know how many of you responder

Barry Irby

Keith, the Craftsman cutter head and bits I traded you had been mine since I was about 16 years old and I was about 70 when I sent it. I used it to build a Grandfather Clock when I first got it. Mounted on a Craftsman RAS it was sort of scary. You had to take really light cuts because the whole thing vibrated and shook. I have a Delta Rockwell Contractor TS and it was similarly shaky on that. So I stored it for over fifty years, Just In Case, and then traded it to you. It probably would work better on a more substantial TS.

Cutting the coves with a TS blade, leaning the blade into the cut by tilting it helps just as you described with the molding head.

I see several people have described wasting away most of the cove with either a regular blade or a dado set. I have not doe that because I thought it pointless. Requires tow setups. Predicting the shape of the cove, then wasting the stock, then changing to the blade and setting up for the cove and cutting it so as to remove all evidence of the wasting process. I usually make something like ten feet of this cove for a piece of furniture at a time, so I can cut the cove quicker than doing all the figuring.

As far as sanding goes, a goose neck scraper and a ROS make short work of it.

no motivation to try

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

If I was making long or frequent runs of cove I would consider the rounded point of a molding cutter. However for a few feet of cove for a single cabinet the time difference between methods is insignificant. With a curved scraper removing tooth marks goes quickly. Refining with sand paper wrapped around something approximating the curve is similarly quick.

With the light cuts from a saw blade a single fence and hand holds is sufficient for guiding the stock. I can calculate the required angle so set up is quick. I would suppose something more secure is required for the heavier cuts from the molding cutter?