Ogee it's Fun - Ogee it's Easy - Ogee We Love to Make an Ogee

[Jim Koepke]

As a design feature ogees have been used for a few millennia. With molding planes the shape is made fairly easy with a pair of hollow & round planes.

It can also be used as an addition to flat work such as the sides of a book shelf, ends of a coat rack, panels in a sign or endless other projects.

If one is going to cut ogees often it is helpful to have templates. Mine are made of scrap 1X material. The traditional ogee made with a pair of molding planes uses 60º, or 1/6th of a circle. It is easy to mark out 6 equal sections on a circular template.

Start the layout by marking a 45º line on the work piece. Make sure it is far enough from the end of the piece to have room or to avoid tear out. Here a template with a diameter about the same as the width of the work piece is used:

Ogee Marking.jpg

The lines marked at 60º is aligned where the 45º line meets the edge and the center of the workpiece:

Ogee Layout.jpg

This can be sawn with a bandsaw. It is also easy to do using a fret saw or coping saw:

Ogee Sawing.jpg

It helps to have the ability to set the blade at an angle for wider stock. It may be necessary to cut half way from one side and then cut the other half from the other side of the piece being worked.

Once the sawing is done the saw marks can be cleaned up using a convex sole spokeshave:

Ogee W:Spokeshave.jpg

Here are two finished pieces:

Ogee Finished.jpg

Hope this is helpful to someone wanting to include a few more curves in their work.

jtk

[Stew Denton]

Jim,

Good post....never thought about how an ogee could be designed. Might come in handy some day.

Thanks and regards,

Stew