Ben Ellenberger
05-22-2022, 2:28 PM
A friend wanted brackets for her bedroom wall to hang a bicycle. I decided it was a good excuse to try a few new things like braces at odd angles and stopped chamfers on octagonal pieces. Overall I think she will be happy with these and they will look fine from 10 feet away. But, I’m not that happy with how they came out.
Octagonalizing the arms but having the stopped chamfer was tricky. It would have been much easier to make the tenon smaller so I could just make the whole piece octagonal. The first few chamfers looked like they were done by a blind beaver. After a good bit of rasping and sanding they are acceptable. I felt like I was starting to get the hang of it bye the last few.
The extreme acute angle on the braces made layout and cutting tricky. Again, by the last one I was starting to get the hang of it, but it made it much more fiddle than a 45 degree brace. Also, I didn’t come up with a good way to clamp these during glue up. They went together fine dry, but I couldn’t get the last bit to seat when I glued them up.
the biggest mistake was getting a crack in one of the base plates during glue up. Everything had to go together at the same time. I was trying to work quickly to get the arm seated so I could work more on seating the brace fully. I rushed a little too much and ended up cracking one of the mounting plates. I can put a butterfly in the back so it will be fine structurally, but I’m sure the crack will be visible. Other than packing it with glue and sawdust, any ideas for fixing it cosmetically?
Overall, I’m glad I tried this, but it started out as a little project to try a few new things and turned into more than I intended it to.
479494479497479500479503
Octagonalizing the arms but having the stopped chamfer was tricky. It would have been much easier to make the tenon smaller so I could just make the whole piece octagonal. The first few chamfers looked like they were done by a blind beaver. After a good bit of rasping and sanding they are acceptable. I felt like I was starting to get the hang of it bye the last few.
The extreme acute angle on the braces made layout and cutting tricky. Again, by the last one I was starting to get the hang of it, but it made it much more fiddle than a 45 degree brace. Also, I didn’t come up with a good way to clamp these during glue up. They went together fine dry, but I couldn’t get the last bit to seat when I glued them up.
the biggest mistake was getting a crack in one of the base plates during glue up. Everything had to go together at the same time. I was trying to work quickly to get the arm seated so I could work more on seating the brace fully. I rushed a little too much and ended up cracking one of the mounting plates. I can put a butterfly in the back so it will be fine structurally, but I’m sure the crack will be visible. Other than packing it with glue and sawdust, any ideas for fixing it cosmetically?
Overall, I’m glad I tried this, but it started out as a little project to try a few new things and turned into more than I intended it to.
479494479497479500479503