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It is
time to shape the bar rail. As I explained at the very beginning, I am making this bar of
poplar. This is cheaper than doing in cherry as was suggested by the Plans. Rockler
offers a very beautiful bar rail in cherry, but at a cost of almost $300. I thought I
could make one of poplar for less. The plans offer an alternate shape — just a simple
angle cut, but I wanted the nice gentle curve that you find in bars (not a first hand
knowledge, of course.)
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Well, here is the shape
that I have pencilled on the glued up poplar. It is 4 1/2" wide. I have used the CMT
catalog to help me figure out the bits to cut certain shapes. The "A" cut I can
do with their 1" radius Ovolo bit. The "C" shape I can do with rounding
over bits. The "D" cut is a simple dado that I will do on the table saw.
It is the "B" cut, a real gentle slope, that puzzled me until I
read that CMT introduced a new cove cutter at this year's IWF Show in Atlanta. A call to
CMT headquarters, and before I knew it, the prototype was on loan to me.
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Here it is — the CMT
Cove Cutter. It is suppose to be available in November with a price that is yet to be
announced.
It is one beautiful piece of metal with 6 extremely sharp, round cutters
brazed in perfect balance on the 6" diameter wheel.
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I held it in
place over the sketched end and decided that the workpiece will have to be fed at an angle
— which angle will have to take some trial and error.
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CMT included a thick
spacer in the package with a warning that it must be used between the arbor and the
cutter. This moves the cutters away from the inside of the arbor area.
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It does have a solid,
powerful look when mounted. I was waiting with anticipation as to how it would sound
spinning at the table saw's full RPM. In fact, it sounded just as you would expect a
perfectly balanced, but heavy, wheel to sound. It definitely purred with authority.
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Clearly the table saw
fence was not going to be used. It takes about 3 seconds to remove the whole Incra TS III
off the table.
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The Exaktor Sliding Table
has a great fence that I was able to slide way into the table saw area. It also allowed me
to set any angle up to about 50o. About 35o looked like a good place
to start the cuts.
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Having never used this
cutter before, I expected that I would have to make a number of cuts — removing a
small bit on each pass. I found that one crank of the blade height adjustment wheel gave
me about 3/8" of height, and that was about as much as I wanted to take off in each
pass.
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Well, this is a few seconds
into the first cut. I have positioned a Grip-Tite magnetic hold-down to keep the workpiece
against the fence.
By the way, I cut the zero clearance plate with this cove cutter at 0o.
I could have used the dado insert, but I thought that a custom insert would work better.
It did.
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The second board is almost 7
feet long. While it tested my space, the handling of the long board was quite easy. The
CMT Cove Cutter runs so smoothly that all you have to do is to keep feeding the board.
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As I removed more of the
lower edge of the board, the low hold of the Grip-Tite seemed less and less stable. Here I
am adding a stack of boards that are mounted to an Incra miter slide. This assembly is
part of a jig I am making for re-sawing at the table saw — more on that next week.
But the stack was ideal to just keep the workpiece tracking against the fence. I am using
the T-wrench to lock the slide in that position. At the other end, I add a clamp for
safety sake.
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Several passes later, you
can see that the heavy block assembly becomes more and more important.
At the end of this pass, I can see that I have removed a lot of the wood and
have a nice curve, but not the one I want. I will increase the angle and move the fence
slightly to make the next cut.
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I swiveled the fence on the
sliding table to about 50o, but at that point, I couldn't move the table
forward enough to be in range. I clamped 6 boards in place to locate the workpiece in the
right position. I have moved the "big block" to hold it in place.
Now, as I write this, I forgot that I could have moved the entire sliding
table forward very easily. Then the real fence would have been ideally placed. I will do
that next time.
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There was no need to match
the sketch exactly, but I think I came pretty close. Now, I am holding the Ovolo bit that
will give a very graceful rounding to the other corner. Of course, the rail, as you see
it, is upside down.
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