All –
Does anyone here have a recommendation for creating grooves on the edge of curved members of the frame of a frame and panel construction? I’ve successfully used a router (the “unplugged” kind) for cutting stopped grooves to receive the panel on straight frame members, but a conventional router such as the L-N and L-V knockoffs of the Stanely #71 won’t work for the top frame member on a “tombstone” door.
I’ve used a mortise marking gauge and a chisel to do this, but it’s tedious and sometimes frustrating to get it right without the grain splitting at the top of the curve. Graham Blackburn’s Traditional Woodworking Handtools suggests that a quirk router is capable of cutting this joint, and I have one of Preston’s quirk routers complete with the auxilary fences and blades.
However, the bottom of the Preston tool is quite flat, and really doesn’t do well for small frame and panel doors. The reprint of Preston’s catalog shows another tool sometimes called a “pistol router” that was sold in pairs that looks as if it would do the job better than the metal quirk router, but I don’t often see these at antique tool auctions, and the American versions seem to go for quite a bit of money, perhaps because they’re somewhat rare.
Any suggestions?
Edited 7/17/2008 11:18 am ET by dkellernc
Replies
Okay, first I thought of this:
http://shop.woodjoytools.com/product.sc?productId=9&categoryId=4
But then I reread your post and realized that you were plainly talking about grooves in the edge to house a panel. Sorry for my confusion.
Edited 7/17/2008 11:57 am ET by Samson
I looked at the Woodjoy tool, and thought about purchasing it. I hesitated because I can't see the sole. The "pistol routers" I referred to above look a lot like the Woodjoy tool, but I suspect it has a flat bottom as a registration surface for its main purpose - cutting a circular quirk on the face of work.
If the tool was thin enough, it wouldn't matter all that much and would work for the inside curve groove on a tombstone door, but since I don't know the dimensions I'm reluctant to purchase it.
Wonder if you could use a slot cutter in a router table affixed with a guide pin?
I know danmart has made tombstone doors so maybe he'll weigh in here.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I think a slot cutter would work handheld with a bearing guide too, but I took the OP to be looking for a non-electric method. ??
Oh yeah, most likely you're right. Can't wait to see/hear the answer.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
What about making a scratch stock and advancing the blade as the groove gets deeper? I know it's not anymore quicker than a chisel but at least you'll get consistent results with it and they are simple to make.
Yeah, I'm surprised there is not some sort of spokeshave type tool that has a very narrow curved sole and maybe interchangable blades to make different width gooves on the edges of curved pieces. It could also sport one or two fences and maybe even some sorts of retractable spurs to slice the sides initially. I can sort of picture it.
I would imagine you could make a cooper's crows (croze) since that's the same principle in making a groove in a curved surface. I've never used one but I would imagine working with the grain as opposed to across it would work fine. Although I'm sure you would have to work down hill on both sides much like a spokeshave to avoid tear out.
The scratch stock method is something I've tried in the past, but I don't like it. The reason is that if you're not exceedingly careful to mark the outlines of the groove quite deeply with a mortise gauge, I find that scratch stocks tend to tear out the sides of the groove.
That might be more of a technique issue on my part, as I've found scratch stocks to be quite useful on face grain moldings.
Frankly, my question has a bit more to do with a "how did they do it" in the 18th century. To my knowledge, the Seaton tool chest doesn't contain a quirk router or other, dedicated tool for creating grooves on curved work, but I don't think it's known for sure whether Benjamin Seaton assembled his tools in 1796 with the idea of both general carpentry and cabinetmaking, or just cabinetmaking. It's possible that grooves on curved work weren't really considered, because they'd be mostly restricted to very high-style furniture making.
I think that while the Seaton chest is a great look into the tools of the cabinet maker of the late 18th century, it should be remembered that Benjamin would have most likely filled out the chest with more tools should he have become a practicing cabinet maker. More of a general purpose chest of tools, but not with many specialized tools.
There is a wonderful thread on a French-speaking forum. The maker goes by Farfadet. This is the cabinet he made, close-up of the rasied panel:
View Image
All by hand tool methods.
The thread is--with Google's French language translation service:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lamortaise.com%2Fmodules.php%3Fname%3DForums%26file%3Dviewtopic%26t%3D6604%26postdays%3D0%26postorder%3Dasc%26start%3D0&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
I believe the panel/groove construction begins on page 8. The entire thread of his update posts is well worth the time it will take to read it. There was an update thread on WoodNet...but alas, the panel construction thread has expired.
Take care, Mike
Looks to me from that picture on page 8 that he used a chisel.
Yep.
Bevel down for most all of it.
For a simple tombstone door, I've used a cutting gauge with the beam a bit more rounded in order for gauge to navigate the curves in order to establish the extents of the groove. I forget what Farfadet used. Google wasn't kind to me just now in navigating further than I did into the thread.
It really isn't a big deal to use the chisel to clean out to about the bottom of the cutting gauge marks, gauge a little deeper, and clean it out again.
Take care, Mikeoutta here for the rest of the day.
Thanks for the link, Mike. Some of the translations are pretty amusing, particularly the descriptions of the number of posts each author has (the translation sounds like portions of a laxative commercial - "Almost Regular" and "Regular More!" being the two that caught my eye).
That's a heck of a nice cabinet. I'll read it thoroughly.
I just read through the whole thread. Really like the cabinet, really hate the finish. There's not too many shots of the grooving in the curved parts of the panel, but from what I gather Farfadet did it entirely with chisels and gouges.
What'd be extra nice is to find someone at Colonial Williamsburg or Winterthur that's actually taken a period piece apart for study or repair and ask him/her what the bottom of those grooves look like. Are they smooth? Are they rough and stair-stepped? Such info would go along way towards figuring out "how it was done".
"What'd be extra nice is to find someone at Colonial Williamsburg or Winterthur that's actually taken a period piece apart for study or repair and ask him/her what the bottom of those grooves look like."
I have seen a few antique cabinet doors having curved panels or tombstone panels and the grooves were definitely done with chisels. In some the groove bottoms were very irregular whilst others had smoother bottoms which suggest that a cranked chisel was used. If I had to do those by hand I would define the edges of the groove with a cutting gauge or scratch stock first, then hack it out with chisels and gouges .These grooves are not deep or of critical dimensions. The same observations on old clock cases that I have worked on.
That French forum is mighty interesting.Philip Marcou
They reproduced one of these a few years ago and just used a chisel. Watched them do it on stage. Really didn't take too long.Adam
Like Adam said, they use a chisel.
On the SAPFM forum when this came up, Don suggested the coach routers. And that too might work well. His picture of the tool he made would be simple enough to make and as Wiley in the thread wrote, the cutters are available pre-made.
Back to the chisel. Like I wrote earlier in this thread and Philp also mentioned, a cutting gauge and chisel while tedious would most likely have been used in many period shops. Why? Because in inventories I fail to see very many specialized tools that would ever do the job. I doubt the rails were farmed out to coach makers.
It is tedious and prone to risk.
Take care, Mike
Mike/Adam/Others - I kind of figured that's the case (the historical construction method), because coachmaker's routers seem to be fairly rare, and fairly expensive as a result.
Nevertheless, I find it a bit odd that the cabinet shops that were constantly making tombstone doors would not have put at least some effort into making/buying a dedicated tool that did the job with less risk than a marking gauge and a chisel. I would've thought that fine cabinet wood was so expensive in the 18th century that the master would not tolerate much risk of blowing out the sides of a groove on a cabinet door.
Or perhaps there just isn't that much risk - I haven't done enough of them to really find out if it's common to blow out the edge of the groove or not.
Well for one, no cabinet shop made tons of these in the 18th c. When you look at cabinetmakers account books, you always see a terrific diversity of work. People have these ideas that these guys made one secretary after another. Just isn't so. If a cabinetshop made more than a few of these a year I would be surprised.Second, these guys didn't need a router to make a straight groove with a chisel. When one eschews the router and hollow chisel mortiser, one can't help but get good with a chisel. I think its important to learn to make joints like this without using a mallet. In general, I don't think the main stream ww press has done a service to the chisel. You can do a lot more with a chisel than pare a fat tenon or chop dt waste. When I see the guys in Williamsburg work with chisels, it's like watching a chef use a chef's knife. Fast, accurate and capable of things must of us don't think to use them for. (if you get my drift)Adam
I agree that chisels can do way more than what you see in the magazines. I love mine, and use them in all sorts of unorthodox ways.
I don't know a damn thing about coachmaking in the 19th century, but I seem to remember hearing of rather fine and often curved work on fancy coaches. I wonder if they just used chisels to, or maybe had some dedicated tools? Any idea?
I don't know anything about coachmakingAdam
Hmm - Well, I suppose that depends on the definition of "tons". I guess I'm thinking particularly of the Townsends/Goddards, of whose work several hundred high-style pieces survive. My thought would be that you are precisely correct regarding cabinet shops in towns and villages without a very large population, though I suspect such shops in urban centers like Philadelphia and New York were more specialized.
That said, making grooves on the inside of a curve just seems like a natural place for a specialized tool, much like a rabbet plane (or potentially a plow) is a lot more efficient in making a precisely straight groove down one edge of a straight piece. No question, you can definitely do it with a chisel, but it's a heck of lot faster with a well-tuned rabbet plane (removing some of the waste with a chisel, however, seems like a good idea).
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