How to make this moulding - recommendations/advice welcome

[aesmith]

Hi,

Family member has asked if I can make up matching mouldings for this chest of drawers. The first picture shows a sample draw with the moulding missing, I think there are some other sections missing or damaged (but I'm not going to ask until I know I can make it). Second picture shows the moulding in cross section. As you can see the rounded over part is not a full 180 degrees like a beading plane would cut, and the hollow section isn't a constant radius.

Any suggestions or advice would be welcome. I was thinking along the lines of cutting roughly to shape, for example cutting the hollow not quite full depth, then fine tuning the profile in some way that I haven't really thought out. I would make the profile on the edge of a board, then cut off once it's ready.

I'm not 100% set on doing it by hand, but I can see limits on what a router would do given these are not exact quarter or half circles.

Thanks,

Tony S

 

[grumpycorn]

Use hollows and rounds to get close (if you have those) then a custom scraper / scratch stock made from some saw blade. If you haven’t got H&R’s then you could probably rough out the shape using other tools (plough plane, rabbet plane and / or table saw) and then use the scraper I reckon.

I would have thought that originally the moulding one done as one long run so it might be a case of trial and error to get a good match where it joins the original

 

[robgul]

Stumpy Nubs on YT has a video out today that covers making mouldings with multiple router passes - I've not watched all of it yet - it may give you and idea or two

 

[Adam W.]

You'll be able to get an exact match with the correct sized hollow and round moulding planes. You'll need to cut a rebate for the round to run in and chamfers for the hollow to run on, as they are difficult to steer otherwise.

They are easy to use if you look at it as a form of carving using the planes to sculpt the shape.

There is an explanation on page 1 & 2 of the thread here.......

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/thread...me-with-hand-cut-and-carved-mouldings.130843/

 

[aesmith]

Thanks. I'd love a set of hollows and rounds, but don't have anything like that at the moment and I don't really know how I'd go about getting a set. Don't they cut a constant radius though? Or do you use different sizes and sort of blend them together. I need to follow up the idea though. For this moulding the convex part is 1/8" radius and the concave around 1/4" (but not constant). As far as I can see that would be a No.2 hollow and a No.4 round, according to one article anyway.

I might try some improvised methods first. If the profile looks like a match I'm not averse to a little cheating at the very end to get the mitre to match exactly.

Next problem would be to match the colour.

Thanks again, Tony S

 

[Adam W.]

You have to blend them in, just like carving. That's why it's going to be difficult to get it right with a router.

I get mine off ebay, I think it's the worlds best secondhand tool shop.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

If you don't have access to hollows and rounds then I'd get as close as possible to the profile with whatever router bits /rebate plane/whathaveyou are to hand and then make one or more scratchstocks out of an old saw blade. It's only a short run and you can match it precisely.

 

[grumpycorn]

I get mine off ebay, I think it's the worlds best secondhand tool shop.

I agree. You don’t need a set of hollows and rounds, since you know what profile you are creating, you can just look for the one or two that you’d need. Buying individual planes work out a bit cheaper than buying matched pairs or sets as well.

check out Matt Bickford’s blog, he’s a maker in the US who had put a lot of info on his site that helps cement how to use them (for me at least!)

 

[aesmith]

Thanks. I'm a bit worried about terminology if it came to getting individual H or R planes, especially by mail order. For example on Ebay at the moment there are two listings for "No.2 Hollow" but of those one is actually a Round (cuts a hollow) and the other looks like 3/16" radius rather than 1/8".

I think I need to park the H&R idea for the moment, for this job anyway, and see what I can do with what I have. As Adam said it can't quite be done with normal router bits.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Thanks. I'm a bit worried about terminology if it came to getting individual H or R planes, especially by mail order. For example on Ebay at the moment there are two listings for "No.2 Hollow" but of those one is actually a Round (cuts a hollow) and the other looks like 3/16" radius rather than 1/8".

I think I need to park the H&R idea for the moment, for this job anyway, and see what I can do with what I have. As Adam said it can't quite be done with normal router bits.

So how about the scratch stock idea then?

 

[aesmith]

I think that's the way to go.

 

[IWW]

So how about the scratch stock idea then?

I think that's far & away the most sensible approach. Hollows & rounds are fine for making larger mouldings, but would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut making one short section of simple moulding.

A short piece like that is a doddle to make with a "scratch stock", which itself takes no more than a few minutes to make. There are various styles, but the one I favour is the simple "L" shape:


The blades/cutters can be made of a bit of scraper blade, a bit of the (unhardened) blade of a defunct hardpoint saw or any similar file-able spring steel around 0.03 - 0.04" thick.

Mark out the profile with a fine marker pen and use a grinder & files to remove the waste (or just files if you don't have a suitable machine). Some people hone the cutting edges, some add a burr, but I find both unnecessary & it'll work jut fine if you use a fine-ish file and take care to get the edges as square as possible.

For a couple of short runs & simple shapes like a quirked bead, a scraper is almost as quick as a 'lectric router (& a lot safer!):


and can go where no router can:


It would take me <10 minutes to make a scratcth-stock to cut that profile. I'd make it on the edge of a suitably prepared board, then rip off the bit required. A useful hint; make the board an inch or two longer than you need because it's often difficult to cut the profile over an edge. Start at the 'far' end and work back, as you do with a rebate plane.

You should be able to get the profile very close, and blend in any minor discrepancies after it's in place. (Even if your moulding is perfect, it may not match both ends if the original was also hand-made, so a bit of careful blending is often required.) For simple shapes like yours, you can do it all with the scratch stock - it may surprise you how quickly it goes.

For more complex profiles it pays to rip some of the waste away (you can cut very close to any fillets and they will be your reference points. For e.g., this is a fence for a plough plane that I was working on yesterday, at the stage I have made several saw cuts to the layout lines:


If it had been a large piece, I would have used hollow & round planes, but because the wood is very dense & scrapes very nicely, I decided to do it with a scratch-stock, after knocking off as much waste as I safely could. It was all over in less than 30 minutes:


The result is pretty acceptable, I think.

As you might have gathered, I do love my scratchstocks....

 

[Spectric]

Stumpy Nubs on YT has a video out today that covers making mouldings with multiple router passes - I've not watched all of it yet - it may give you and idea or two

Do you have a link ?

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Do you have a link ?

Also: