Pie Crust Edge

[wellywood]

Can anyone give me any guidance on making a pie-crust edge for a candlestand table. Something like the one in the pic attached.
Is this something that must be hand carved in sections or is there a machine method of achieving this?

 

[Racers]

Norm did one once, he used a router and a jig offboard on his lathe to remove the middle.

You could use a router and work your way across, or attach the router to a board wider than the top, like a flattening jig.


Pete

 

[wellywood]

Thanks for that Pete. Yes, I was thinking along the lines of a router mounted on a sled but it seems such a waste to rout out the entire centre of the top to achieve a raised edge. I was wondering if it is possible to rout the edge moulding in sections and then apply them to the top. Has anyone done this or something similar?

 

[marcros]

i wouldn't do your latter suggestion with moulding. If it was a matter of saving wood, I would probably be tempted to build the blank up on the edges with extra thickness at the first stage- probably making an octagon shape with mitres. Then cutting the table to round, with this extra thickness, then using the router and sled as suggested before. I think with mouldings it will make it more difficult and will potentially look poor.

I would skim the table top with the router as the final cut, so you are below the glue line on any unwanted material on the edge.

 

[CHJ]

Can't see from the small image, but if the edge bead is plain and not sculpted then they can simply be turned on a lathe.
This is a smaller version but principle is the same, just needs a lathe that can swing the larger diameter.

 

[wellywood]

Marcros, that sounds like a good solution and a wood saver. Chas, thanks (nice piece of work there ) but I was looking for something more intricate - like a crinkled pie-crust. Sorry about the quality of the pic.

 

[bugbear]

This is a good photo:

http://www.antiquepurveyor.com/accents- ... -p296.html

The "crust" is clearly multiple, separate pieces.

BugBear

 

[CHJ]

.... I was looking for something more intricate - like a crinkled pie-crust. Sorry about the quality of the pic.

Then for a one off I would start with the turned blank and sculpt the edge afterwards, perhaps with a metal template to ensure no tool slips or cuts too far into base material.
For multiple items I would turn and make router guide template to form edge profile.

Good luck on setting out the segment spacing.

If using multiple add-on segments then I would suggest that each segment needs to be rebated in its base so that it sits on top of the main platform but lips right over the edge so that no horizontal joins are visible around the periphery.

 

[Eric The Viking]

All the ones I've seen have been 60 degree or 45 degree blanks (six or eight pieces altogether) and planted as Chas suggests.

I've got a cheap Chinese one in the workshop at the moment - the stem broke and I've suggested to SWMBO that it becomes a tray rather than be remade as a table (because it was too small and unstable). I'd have to go look, but I think it's eight pieces.

It would be fairly easy to make a pattern and do it as segments. It would also look nicer as it avoids prominent end grain that way, which might have been the original reason for the design.

[later] Nothing I could quickly find in Joyce. Bill Hylton's book on furniture tantalisingly mentions piecrust edges, but has no description of method.

E.

 

[bugbear]

[later] Nothing I could quickly find in Joyce. Bill Hylton's book on furniture tantalisingly mentions piecrust edges, but has no description of method.

I'll check Hooper and Wells "Modern Cabinet Work, Furniture & Fitments", and Bernard Jones "Practical Woodworker" tonight, if no-one else has by then.

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

V.J.Taylor covers the making of a pie-crust table top in 'The Construction of Period Country Furniture', though not very thoroughly.

He suggests two ways, both already discussed above, to make the 'blank' tabletop. The first being turning from the solid (which he describes as 'wasteful of wood') or routing for a non-circular top, and the second being the glueing on of a 'collar' made up of segments. He then suggests the making of a cardboard template to mark out the outer shape, which is then shaped with a bandsaw, jigsaw or coping saw. He then suggests the making of a 'spiling gauge' to transfer the outer shape to the inside edge. The gauge is a stick of wood with a fence attached to one end, shaped to allow it to follow all the curves, and a pencil stuck through the stick to do the marking. He doesn't describe how the waste is removed from the inside of the pie-crust, but I rather get the feeling that he expects it to be carved out by hand. In a reasonably mild wood such as mahogany, this need not be too onerous; the usual procedure of whacking out the bulk of the waste and becoming progressively more careful the nearer to finished profile you get would seem to be the way to go. Maybe a cardboard cross-section gauge would be useful to monitor progress as the profile develops.

 

[arnoldmason8]

Hi All
"Practical woodcarving and gilding" by William Wheeler and Charles Hayward Pub 1963 has a chapter on piecrust edges and seems to give a comprehensive procedure for setting out and carving the moulding.Can't say I have ever done anything like that so I don't know if the advice is good or not. Best of luck with your project.

---------Cheers--------Arnold

 

[bugbear]

Jones doesn't mention it, but I'll quote Hooper and Wells in their awesome entirety.

"...and the curved top is executed by cutting to shape, then moulding the rim and clearing away the centre part with planes and router"


There's another method using a lathe, equally terse.

BugBear

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I've seen these done in one piece and also done as a flat disc with parts added around the rim, usually made of parts that matched the disc grain direction. In either case the carving was, as far as I can tell, achieved by carving in the solid, i.e., if the edge was built up that was done first then the carving and shaping.

I have also seen a couple of examples of someone doing a reproduction where they used a router and patterns to hog out the bulk of the carving, and finishing the crisp detailing with hand tools. I can't recall in detail the nature of the jigs, but there were a few of them made to do the job. In the examples I've either seen, worked on, or repaired over the years the most common way to get the flat surface in the middle as far as I could tell was by turning a large blank on the lathe.

In a contemporary situation where you want to build a copy I see no reason why you shouldn't come up with methods that suit the tools you have, e.g., hogging out the centre with a router and jig if you don't have a lathe that can handle such a large disk, as well as setting up various jigs and router cutters to create the bulk of the pie crust.

Still, if you want something that looks crisp you do have to do handwork to get into the corners because the modern copies I've seen with sludgy corners and the like where the machine tools couldn't reach properly I think tend to look generally a bit naff. Slainte.

 

[bugbear]

I checked out a 1950's (I think) pie crust edged nest of tables; in this example, the table top is multiply, with a (very nice) burr veneer.

The top is essentially rectilinear, but the edge shape is "fancy", with curves and ins-and-outs.

The pie-crust (on careful examination) was most likely routered using a template, and then applied
in four mitred segments, one per side.

It looks rather neat, but (as usual) proportion, balance and design are very large factors in that.

BugBear

 

[rxh]

In his book Period Furniture Designs, Charles Hayward says the following about a Mahogany Tripod Table with Piecrust Edging: “This delightful type of occasional table was popular in the mid-eighteenth century. In the best tables the top was always cut from the solid. The centre part was recessed on the lathe and the edging was cut in by the wood carver. To cut a top cleanly was extremely difficult because of the awkward grain necessarily encountered in parts. In cheap replicas this piecrust edging is made up as a separate item and glued on. By this method it is made on the spindle moulder, but this is not as satisfactory because, apart from its liability to become loose, the spindle moulder cannot reach into acute corners so that the true section is not followed into the corners.”

 

[wellywood]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my question. After another search I've found a good description of how to do this using pattern jigs and a router (I don't have a lathe at the moment) for either a circular or oval table.
As other forum members have suggested, it does mean routing out the inner surface of the top with all the attendent waste which goes against the grain with me (no pun intended) but it does seem to be the best and probably simplest solution and avoids later separation of any applied edge moulding.
The point has been made about the router not being able to get into the tight corners of the pie crust design and in the solution I've found, this was done with carving tools.
Thanks again to all for their tips/suggestions and if/when I get cracking I'll take WIP pics and post them.

 

[bugbear]

The point has been made about the router not being able to get into the tight corners of the pie crust design...

This problem was solved in the 1950's tables by having a design that didn't have any tight corners.

BugBear

 

[bugbear]

I took some quick snaps of the table (so no snazzy lighting, and lots of shadows)

Here's the moulding:

Looking carefully, it becomes apparent that the design is carefully thought out to faciliate
manufacture - while the moulding does have sharp points facing inwards (which can
be done with a rotary cutter and template), it doesn't have sharp recesses (which can't)

BugBear

 

[wellywood]

Point taken bugbear. So a little thought on the design of the moulding will reduce or even remove any hand tooling needed. I still shudder when I think of all that lovely wood I'm going to have to turn into sawdust to rout the table top though.