arched panel raising using hand tools *LINK*

Carving it?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>FWW ran an article on curved - tombstone, actually - raised panels some years back, and the author did the work with carving tools.

Re: arched panel raising using hand tools

Jack Guzman from Maine

>I believe hand made arched panels were made on one of the Woodwright's shop shows.It doesn't look all that hard when you get the method down.---Jack

Re: Carving it?

Paul Kierstead

>I believe the FWW article used a power router to do the huge majority of the work and used carving tools to just complete the corners. Otherwise you end up with those ones where the top is gently curved with out the nice step corner; most of these power-router only ones look a little weak IMO, though I will admit to seeing the odd one which looked good.

I think it was Lonnie Bird

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>

what's the METHOD?

frank_shic (walnut creek, ca)

>

Re: what's the METHOD?

Jack Guzman from Maine

>I have to dig up the video and watch it.But,I believe all he did was go around the curve with a marking guage to scribe the high spots and remove the excess wood with a big chisel by paring.There's a little more to it but I don't remember it all and I haven't tried it yet myself.---Jack

Re: what's the METHOD?

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>Here is an outline. Mark the inner and outer arches with trammel points or compass from the front. In old work you can usually still see the scar from the point. Mark the shoulders, inner and outer, with a knife. Saw the outer profile. Cut your edge profile on the three straight sides. Mark the thickness of the edge with a marking gauge- it must be somewhat less than the groove because of the taper. Chop down along the inner arch with a gouge that fits the curve and on the shoulders with a chisel. Remove the bulk of the waste with a mallet and gouge. Make a small flat band around the curve by paring parallel to the front surface and more chopping as necessary to give a uniform ridge that meets up with the raising on the straight sides. Finish up with a wide paring chisel. The difficult part is leaving a nice surface with the chisel, paring across the grain. Walnut and mahogany are more forgiving than some others for paring like this.

For the rail, I plough a groove before cutting out the arch. Then saw the arch and smooth with a spokeshave. Mark out the rest of the groove in the center of the arch with mortise gauge and chop out with a mortise chisel. Good luck- its harder to describe than to do the work.

thanks!

frank_shic (walnut creek, ca)

>great advice! i knew that there HAD to be a way to replicate the arched raised panels by HAND!

yeah,thanks

Jack Guzman from Maine

>That is alot more helpful than my post.---Jack

Re: what's the METHOD?

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Don't forget your card scraper. It comes in really handy when you get tearout from trying to carve against the grain with the paring chisel, or just to smooth out the facets from the chisel work.