How would you do this??

[Rick Cicciarelli]

Wasn't sure if this was the right forum to post this in, but it has to do with wood shaping so.....
I am curious how someone from the 1700's would have managed to put the edge on this table? The entire edge all the way around is scalloped in and out and it has a nice decorative edge all the way around to go with it. Today I would think the way to do this would be to use a band saw and finish it off with an ogee bit in a router. How in the world would someone had done this in the 1700's?

[Mat Ashton]

I am curious how someone from the 1700's would have managed to put the edge on this table? The entire edge all the way around is scalloped in and out and it has a nice decorative edge all the way around to go with it. Today I would think the way to do this would be to use a band saw and finish it off with an ogee bit in a router. How in the world would someone had done this in the 1700's?

Using a band saw and router is so 1990s! U need a Biesse Overhead Router. From drawing to the finished top in less than a couple hours, minus the sanding of course.

The industrial revolution kicked off in the early 1700s so it's possible that they would have had a crude shaper to do the bulk of the shaping and profiling and then finished off by hand. Before that time it was all done by hand. On a side note I once had a read threw a furniture makers note book from the 1700s and was surprised at how fast they could produce pieces.

That's why true mahogany was so prized by furniture makers. There are woods with far superior grain, colour and stability (Cherry and Walnut to name a couple) but nothing can match the ease of workability that true mahogany posses - especially when it's all done by hand.

[Robert Rozaieski]

Wasn't sure if this was the right forum to post this in, but it has to do with wood shaping so.....
I am curious how someone from the 1700's would have managed to put the edge on this table? The entire edge all the way around is scalloped in and out and it has a nice decorative edge all the way around to go with it. Today I would think the way to do this would be to use a band saw and finish it off with an ogee bit in a router. How in the world would someone had done this in the 1700's?

Looks like a late Queen Anne piece from about the 3rd quarter of the 18th century, probably New England from the looks of the knee blocks, the straight rays of the fan carving and the shape of the apron. The scalloped top would have been cut using a turning saw and the saw cuts would have likely been cleaned up with paring cuts from several gouges of different sizes and sweeps. The molding profile around the edge would likely have been carved by hand with gouges and could have been finished up with a scraper filed to the molding profile.

[Rick Cicciarelli]

You really think that edge was done by using a hand held gouge all the way around? I would think some kind of scraper or some kind of tiny plane might have been used...but I have no clue....

[David Keller NC]

"You really think that edge was done by using a hand held gouge all the way around?"

Absolutely, there's no doubt about it. Many of these shaped aprons and tea table edges still bear the marks of carving tools. For simpler shapes, some moldings were made with a scratch stock, but it's far more efficient to use carving tools if the molding is deep or wide, or both.

BTW - Robert, your guess is correct. It's the front cover photo from Jeffrey Greene's American Furniture of the 18th Century.

And, not that it really matters all that much, the Industrial Revolution was a 19th century (late 1800's) thing. The very first rudimetary shapers and planers were invented and patented around that time. Very limited machinery was in use by the 1700's, but that consisted almost entirely of water-powered sawmills (and that doesn't count - steam power was the first incarnation of the industrial revolution).

[Rick Cicciarelli]

The skills of the folks from the past is just amazing. To think many of these people started apprenticeships when they were just kids. I am 31 so I will make myself sound old now, but what the heck do kids do now....video games. Huh. It is sad to see such a creative and skilled time long since past.
Yeah, I was going to say...the industrial revolution was 1800's as far as I knew...and you are correct, that is the photo from that book cover. Just picked up the book...which is a great book by the way!!
I am amazed someone could make such a perfect looking decorative edge by using a carving tool like that.....