Phil Mueller
12-12-2020, 11:53 PM
We all got to see Mike Allen’s beautiful stringing work on his mail box project. It inspired me to stop procrastinating and at least get the small arch groove cut on my demilune table legs. Yes, this project seems to be going on about a lifetime now, but I do get distracted from time to time.
The plan is to do traditional stringing down the outside edges of the table legs, with a small arch at the top. The tool I have at hand is the Steve Latta cutter offered through LN.
The challenge is to get the arch in the exact same location on each side of the legs. For that, I have found it best to build a jig. Plus, it keeps you from having to punch a hole into the leg as a pivot point.
The jig was made with some scraps and fits onto the end of the leg. Marks are made on the leg to indicate the start/stop points (I just used a piece of poster board as a guide - in this case 3/16th from each table leg side). Then the cutter is adjusted to meet the arch. A radius point is then made with the tool. This will ensure every arch is in the same place on every leg surface.
446967 446968
I begin with very light passes, then go as deep as the stringing requires.
446969 446971
The thing with this tool is that it cuts both sides nicely, but has no ability to clean out the waste. For that I use a couple of the small inlay tools from LV.
446970
Doesn’t look too great, but serves the purpose.
The LN tool does work well, however, you must keep in mind that the cutters are offset. The back cutter is set to the right, and the front cutter is set to the left. So if you are doing a stopped groove, as I was, you have to stop short and sort of free hand with another tool to finish the inside line on the left, and the outside line on the right...probably doesn’t make sense...but I think it’s sort of a con of the tool.
446972
The first took about 15 mins. The second about 10, once I figured out the right tools and got my method down. 8 more to go.
The plan is to do traditional stringing down the outside edges of the table legs, with a small arch at the top. The tool I have at hand is the Steve Latta cutter offered through LN.
The challenge is to get the arch in the exact same location on each side of the legs. For that, I have found it best to build a jig. Plus, it keeps you from having to punch a hole into the leg as a pivot point.
The jig was made with some scraps and fits onto the end of the leg. Marks are made on the leg to indicate the start/stop points (I just used a piece of poster board as a guide - in this case 3/16th from each table leg side). Then the cutter is adjusted to meet the arch. A radius point is then made with the tool. This will ensure every arch is in the same place on every leg surface.
446967 446968
I begin with very light passes, then go as deep as the stringing requires.
446969 446971
The thing with this tool is that it cuts both sides nicely, but has no ability to clean out the waste. For that I use a couple of the small inlay tools from LV.
446970
Doesn’t look too great, but serves the purpose.
The LN tool does work well, however, you must keep in mind that the cutters are offset. The back cutter is set to the right, and the front cutter is set to the left. So if you are doing a stopped groove, as I was, you have to stop short and sort of free hand with another tool to finish the inside line on the left, and the outside line on the right...probably doesn’t make sense...but I think it’s sort of a con of the tool.
446972
The first took about 15 mins. The second about 10, once I figured out the right tools and got my method down. 8 more to go.