How to fit a base to a tapered pot

[mattsutton29]

Hi everyone. Can anyone help. Just trying out making tapered stave pots and bowls. How can I flatten the bottom and fit a bottom to it. It’s just dry fitted at the moment. It’s not mitred it’s birdsmouthed. Thanks for any advice.

 

[niall Y]

Hi everyone. Can anyone help. Just trying out making tapered stave pots and bowls. How can I flatten the bottom and fit a bottom to it. It’s just dry fitted at the moment. It’s not mitred it’s birdsmouthed. Thanks for any advice.

These are looking smart. Whenever you are working on tapered objects such as this . nothing is at right angles. Can't quite work out the scale of these but there are several approaches you could try.

The way I would favour is to cut the correct angle at the top and bottom of each of the staves before assembly. Not sure what machinery if any you have access to , but I would do this on a table saw , with a jig of sorts to hold things in their correct alignment. The angle you need is the angle measured between the surface it is standing on and one of the sides. Keep your sliding bevel at right angles to the side as any deviation will change the angle. Next time it might be best to sort out the tops and bottoms before cutting the birds-mouth.

If you go for a thin base, then you can set this into a groove of the correct width, up a sufficient way from the base, This has to slope the same angle as the base - the pesky dihedral angle again I'm afraid. This might also be best done before the birds-mouth to limit break-out.

If you make yourself a sanding-board you should be able to clean up the top and bottom of the pot quite nicely. Best of luck

 

[mattsutton29]

Great thanks. I’ll give those a try. 12 sides next with a more severe taper. Well appreciated

 

[mattsutton29]

Thanks Niall y. Took some of your advice. And it worked out a treat. For the base I used a bearing guided rebate bit set at 19mm high so I could use the same thickness wood to fit it.worked out the angles for the top and bottom rim and cut them in the table saw before routing the birdsmouths. Next I want to go bigger with contrasting woods to show off the birdsmouths better. Any suggestions on which wood to use as I’m trying to keep the costs down. I want American black walnut and maple but they aren’t the cheapest and I haven’t got thicknessing capabilities unfortunately.