Routing jig for coves,archs>FROM JAMIE BUXTON

[John Miliunas]

For whatever reason, Jamie was unable to get the jpg's posted at his end, so he asked if I could run them out here. This is primarily a followup on the previous thread of making cove molding. The following is all of Jamie's work!
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Here's a schematic drawing of the router jig. (You Sketchup zealots
may notice another convert!)

(That's the 1st pic)

Here's a photo of a piece of furniture made with this technique. The
display cases are bow-fronts. They're four feet wide, and the front bows 4" toward the room. The drawer fronts and the door rails were shaped with this kind of jig. In fact, the door rails were shaped twice with this kind of jig -- a convex one for the front, and a concave one for the rear.
For the curious, the case exteriors are cancharana, the interiors are
curly maple, the pulls are ebony, and the feet are gold leaf on
poplar. The cases contain a collection of Mickey Mouse
memorabilia. Before you scoff, the owners told me that the market value of that collection is considerably more than the replacement value of my entire shop!

(Second pic)

[John Miliunas]

OK, I theoretically should have a "jump" on the rest of the viewers. Jamie, that's absolutely *fantastic* work! Walt himself would be proud to have those collectables stores in something that beautiful! Also, thanks much for the jig info. (Sheeeesh....'nuther jig to make!) :D :cool:

[Mark Singer]

Great work.
This technique wil work well for certain pieces. The barstool seats were extruded as one 5' long piece and then cut into seperate seats....it would be difficult to use this technique since the bridges will bow in that long a span. It appears to also be critical that the bridges stay exactly perpendicular to the curved rails or the height of the bit will very creating an undulating surface.

[Todd Burch]

Yo Jamie - nice drawing!! Nice work too! Todd

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Jamie
They are really beautiful display cases.
Really a neat idea for making the curves pieces.
Daniel :cool:

[Jamie Buxton]

Great work.
This technique wil work well for certain pieces. The barstool seats were extruded as one 5' long piece and then cut into seperate seats....it would be difficult to use this technique since the bridges will bow in that long a span. It appears to also be critical that the bridges stay exactly perpendicular to the curved rails or the height of the bit will very creating an undulating surface.

John -- Thanks for posting.

All -- Thanks for the compliments.

Mark ---
You're right: using this technique, I'd have made your seats one-by-one.
There's an easy way to maintain perpendicularity: add a crossbar to the bridge so that it looks like a T-square. The crossbar bears against a rail to set the angle. In practice, I don't find that perpendicularity is an issue. I think that the technique's sensitivity is related to the radius of curvature. Radii as large as your seats or my bow-front don't seem to pose much of a problem.

Jamie