Queen Anne Table Edge Profile

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aushbaush

Well-known member
Need advice on techniques for putting the edge profile on a round-top Queen Anne dropleaf table.  Top is mahogany, a little thicker than 3/4 in thick, 38 in dia.  I am planning for an ovolo, or perhaps thumbnail with a fillet.  (Ogee profile seems more prevalent on later tables.)  Available router bits (forbidden SAPFM words?) do not seem to support the profiles I see on the QA tables I see at Winterthur and other museums.  One the circular edge can one use hollows and rounds, scratch block, rasps/files?

Thanks, Dale
 
Dale, you could use one of those &*$#*&* tools that you mentioned and make the pattern yourself. Buy a HSS bit for it, without carbide, in a 1/4 round pattern, and grind it to the elongated ovolo pattern that you like. On the other hand, if the profile has a fillet, set the fillet in with the tool that you mentioned, and then carve the curved profile, check it and clean it up as you go with a piece of scraper that has the pattern ground on it. Its surprising how fast this can be done. You will be carving and scraping with and across the grain as you go around the table so don't rush it. I have used a back bent gouge to do the carving and its similar to the process for carving base molding shown in the e-interview on the Bombe Chest.  When all the teeth gnashing is done, lets us know how it worked out.
John
 
Dale- Like John said. You can also use spokeshaves to rough out the profile, which is usually an elliptical section, not an arc. A close look at old ones will show scraper tracks. Grind a custom one and wet the wood slightly. -Al
 
An old trick for forming fair table eldges anything else that has all convex curvature - is to draw up a section of the desired profile and lay out the offests of flat faced planes that are tangents to the final curvature in section, and then to carve flat planes on the edge of the stock using hand planes that will self-fair to cut these flats. You can even repeat the trick and do a second generation of the flats that are laid out on the faces of the first flats. In the end, all that is left is to round the edges of the multifaceted surface you have created and it will automatically be fair.

When this is not done, it is all to easy to get wobbles along the length of the edge.


Karl
 
http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/MS+Bickfords+British+Moulding+Planes.aspx

Check out the video, pretty neat
 
It was a great video but I don't see what it has to do with putting a profile on a ROUND table top.  Maybe I chose the wrong video?

But I am having good luck so far with cutting facets with a block plane to approximate the faired edge.  Being an engineer, I have to point out that the facets are actually sections of cones!  I've cut a great faired edge on a piece of pine representing a section of the circular top edge.  Now on to the mahogany!

Dale
 
lol, ohhhhhhhhhh, yeah, round huh. i skipped over that part, makes it alot tougher. I have often wondered how they did invected corners on tables like this one. Guesses they are carved?

http://www.moorehouseantiques.com/cgi-bin/item2.cgi?id=3&itemid=1071104152809233&sort=&start=&cat=
 
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