Coopered cabinet door

[Dave Cav]

I'm planning on building a cabinet (or two) with convex coopered doors. How best should I clean up the inside (concave) side? Will I need to make a plane with a curved sole or is there some other work-around? I've only made one small Krenov style plane and it wasn't exactly an unqualified success. Should I start looking for a compass plane of some sort?

Thanks

[Carl Beckett]

Hi Dave,I did one some time ago with a rounded spokeshave. Another time, I left the inside faceted (flat). I liked the flat segments best.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

How prounounced is the curve? If it's a gentle one, and you just want to blend out the facets, a card scraper may do the job fine. I believe that's what Tom Fidgen showed on his blog when he did one.

[Chris Vandiver]

I'm planning on building a cabinet (or two) with convex coopered doors. How best should I clean up the inside (concave) side? Will I need to make a plane with a curved sole or is there some other work-around? I've only made one small Krenov style plane and it wasn't exactly an unqualified success. Should I start looking for a compass plane of some sort?

Thanks

Your next attempt at making your own plane may turn out better.:)

[James Owen]

A scorp will do the job, especially if you have relatively heavy curvature; otherwise, there are some specialised cooper's tools available, that might fit the bill, especially if you are planning to make more coopered items in the future.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

A couple other ideas spring to mind . . .

Bob Smalser (I believe it was him, anyway) has an article about making a spar plane from an old wooden smoother - you could probably apply the same methodology (in reverse, sort of) to get a plane that mates well with your inside radius.

A large molding plane may also work well, depending on your sizing - the largest from a traditional set is something like an inch and half, I believe? But it may be enough to help smooth things out prior to scraping. I've also seen some large round bottom wooden planes at antique malls - you never know what you'll stumble across!

[James Taglienti]

You can "scrub plane" it with a compass plane across the grain and then scrape it smooth... I might make a custom platen for a belt sander and have at it with that...

[Jamie Buxton]

This doesn't comply with the Neanderthal approach, but I attack this problem with a 4 1/2" angle grinder with coarse sanding discs. If you hold the disc really flat to the surface, it is cutting a very large radius. The more you tilt it up from flat, the smaller the radius it cuts. So you can make the sander conform to any door radius, or even a door that has a changing radius. You can clean up the concave face of the panel very quickly.

[Chris Vandiver]

Buy a nice wooden jack plane(they can be found cheaply)and shape it to match your inside radius. While you're at it, get another jack plane and shape it to match your outside radius. You'll be good to go.

[Derek Cohen]

I'm planning on building a cabinet (or two) with convex coopered doors. How best should I clean up the inside (concave) side? Will I need to make a plane with a curved sole or is there some other work-around? I've only made one small Krenov style plane and it wasn't exactly an unqualified success. Should I start looking for a compass plane of some sort?

Thanks

Hi Dave

I have a full series on this on my website. Go to http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/index.html and then the series that is entitled Sideboard-Entertainment Centre ...... became "The Coopered End Table".

Here are a few images:

Using the Veritas Curved Squirrel-Tail Palm plane (with rounded sole) as a "jack" to roughly shape and remove as much waste as possible ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Sideboard-Entertainment%20Unit/Andnowforsomethingcompletelydifferent_html_2672d10 5.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Sideboard-Entertainment%20Unit/Andnowforsomethingcompletelydifferent_html_4b8dc3d 4.jpg

... then finished it with a scraper ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Sideboard-Entertainment%20Unit/Andnowforsomethingcompletelydifferent_html_m619a92 36.jpg

... became these ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Sideboard-Entertainment%20Unit/Andnowforsomethingcompletelydifferent_html_m5a3025 cc.jpg

.. and ended as this ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Sideboard-Entertainment%20Unit/TheEndFinisAbsolutelDone_html_35ff8a39.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dave Cav]

Very nice end table, Derek. Thanks for all the information; I wasn't aware of the Lee Valley plane Derek mentioned and I'll look it up. I am also giving a lot of thought to modifying an old woodie or transitional jack plane sole to match the curve.

[Fitzhugh Freeman]

The Brian Smalser article mentioned above is here:
http://www.wkfinetools.com/contrib/bSmalser/art/sparPlane/sparPlane1.asp

I was just looking at it yesterday and had bookmarked it. He takes an old woodie and creates a tool like what you might want. He goes into some good detail in the write up.