I like using sketch-up. I think drawing my projects as a 3-D model has gone a long way in developing my skills as a woodworker. So the next logical step….. No drawing at all! Just a mental image from a magazine project. The project I am going off of is a mantel clock that was in an issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. I am not using any plans, predetermined measurements, guidelines. At this point, I still have some decisions to make along the way, so I am not completely certain how the end product is going to look. It could be something fantastic or a total bomb! Either way, its gonna be fun!
I am using a combination of cherry and maple. So far, the corners are square tapered columns, made from cherry. I had gotten some 5/4 cherry, so I was able to get 1″ thick columns. After testing out some 3/4″ pieces, they just looked to thin, especially since I wanted to taper on two sides. After I got the columns milled, I determined the length of them. Then on the table saw I cut tenons on the top of the columns that will eventually be used to attach a top.
The front, back, and sides are going to be 1/4″ thick solid panels that will fit into stopped grooves on the columns. I used a plunge cut on the router table to create these grooves. From their I cut the tapers on the sides opposite of the grooves. The taper is subtle at an 1/8″ in. I made my own taper jig/sled for these cuts. In a future blog post I will go into more detail of this jig. Once the tapers were cut, I used a card scraper to to clean up the cuts.
The next post on this project I will discuss the panels.