Made crown moulding with a body grinder

[Paul Atkins]

Well, mostly. I had to make a 60" diameter piece of cherry crown and was trying to figure how to do it. It was a simple cove but 6" x 6". I was going to turn it on my big lathe, but I only needed one quarter of a circle. That's a lot of wasted cherry. Another way was to glue up some poplar on the other 3/4, but that's a lot of work too. How about just making the one quarter using a router and pivot it on a turntable? Hmm, how about a Lancelot carving tool? Since I never use one I was not sure how it would cut or how I would make a cove with a 9" radius with a 4" cutter. Days went by with an epiphany at 5 AM dog walk. So here is the result. The cutter was amazing with a surface ready to sand with 120. The blank was glued up and screwed to a piece of mdo and pivoted with a piece of 1/2" drill rod. The grinder was pivoted on a carriage bolt. I used a router to put the edge roundover and then sanded. The contractor says he'll get a photo when installed. Time to get a haircut too.

[David DeCristoforo]

Sweeeet!!!

[Phil Thien]

Pure genius.

[Don Whitten]

What he said but I'll add ingenious also. Job well done.

[Myk Rian]

I'll bet that thing made a real mess of sawdust. Good going.

[Michael Weber]

Great thinking and creativity. Must be one of the advantages of being up at 5AM:D

[Andrew Joiner]

Very cool Paul. I think the best woodworkers are also inventors.
A real master woodworker will visualize, test, tweak things and then get results.
So my hat's off to you!

P.S. Please don't even think about using the Lancelot to cut your hair.

[Peter Quinn]

Paul, that is awesome! I love it. We made a 24" crown once in three parts on the thru molder, three 9" sections, but that was straights, not curves.

I wonder if a circle jig on a RAS could perform a similar function, like a TS cove, but for radius work. Man, now you got me thinking. Your method looks safer by far. Nice work there.

[Larry Edgerton]

Very Cool!

Hats off to you.;)

[Paul Atkins]

The plywood guard 'removed for clarity'. Radial arm with a dado blade or moulding head- now that sounds safe, but should work. The router to do the roundover and inside cut was pivoted on the same rod as the table top. There is an eccentric bushing on the rod for micro adjustments. I then cut the inside radius with an upcut bit and bandsawed the rest off. I think it took longer to headscratch it than to do it. What do you charge for brainstorming? Actually this was a fun job compared to a couple of ugly 7' posts I just turned.

[Glen Butler]

Great stuff. Excellent ideas. Inspiring. Thanks for sharing.

[Bruce Page]

Some excellent head scratching went into that!

Very clever

[Sam Layton]

Paul, I am impressed... You sure did an excellent job. What will go on the other two ends of that crown?

Great job, Sam

[Brad Shipton]

Very ingenious. I am guessing it was quite the show while you were profiling :)

Brad

[Chris Padilla]

I'm always amazed at the ingenuity of folks...great stuff, Paul.

[Joe Jensen]

Can you talk about how to moved the grinder and the piece? did you move the grinder up and down lots and the piece a little?

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Paul,
Forget the haircut. The hair makes you look a little like Einstein. The unique approach to that curved molding proves the resemblance.
fmr

[Paul Atkins]

I marked the pivot after about 5 passes and counted 35 just now. I have a couple of video clips showing some of it, but I'll have to edit it a bit. Then I will put it on Vimeo with my other ones. I'm not the only one around her that has this look it seems.