Preparing the Surface

Submitted by Leif on Thu, 08/30/2007 - 6:57am.

Stop Talking and Start Working! 

This all seems like a bit much talk for just a couple of simple column covers.  It really is.  I've thought harder about it since trying to write it down than I did doing it, mostly just to try divulge the inner working of a disturbed mind.  Most of it was just - 'hey, that would be cool, huh - that's purty neat...'  It took me 3 sittings of 20 minutes and a full page of text to write down a 5 second thought process - that sounds to me like architect BS.  God knows, I don't want to sound like an architect - most of them are a bunch of ...   

Like I said, I'm not any kind of an experienced carver, so this is just a "this is what I did, be it right or wrong" sort of thing.  Just thought it might be purty neat to do.

Routing for the Inlaid Sides

After selecting some purty wood, cutting the blanks to width and length, the first thing I realized is it would be easiest to route the stopped groove for the walnut side strips now, while the top of the blank was still flat across its entire width.  With that in mind, I built a simple jig out of plywood by screwing it directly to my bench, then routed for the inlays with a 3/4" rabbeting (dado?) bit.

Setting the Height of the Carved Areas. 

Next was to remove the waste around where the raised carving were located.  The edges are the easiest to do, by using the table saw with a good blade.  Care is required because of the depth of the cut, and to avoid burning the wood with the spinning saw blade.

Now the task was to remove the areas the table saw couldn't reach.  The best tool I had in my arsenal is my most hated - a router.  I truly hate these things, but for some work, they are the best thing for the job.

I was careful not to route to the full depth - leaving about 1/32" of wood above the "finished" surface, as shown in the photo above.  I then used a card scraper to take it the rest of the way.

This left only the raised portions I wanted to make the carvings in.  If it hadn't been for the router, I would probably have done this the other way - by doing the carving first, then removing the waste as above.  But my faith in routers is shaky at best, and I had already trashed a set of these column covers with the router, so I decided I was less likely to screw up the carving than to screw up the above portion, that is why this order of procedures were chosen.

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