Shop-Made Curve Molding

This clock has on it what look like, some pretty complex molding. Specifically right now what I'm working on is this curved molding right here. And at first blush, you look at some of that stuff and say, "Oh my gosh, how am I gonna make that? "It's a curve molding. "It's got a lot of detail to it." And it's represented here in full-scale. My advice to you on this stuff is, break the molding down into smaller components. That's gonna make it easier to digest, easier to make. And it's pretty well laid out on these plans here. So let me show you how this works and how simple this can be. The first step is, I made some patterns and these were laid out for me in the blueprints. The pattern is what's gonna define the circle that the molding is made to. So next step from these circular patterns. I went forward and I attach the material to it that the molding is gonna be cut from. I went to the band saw and I cut the material so that it just projects a tiny bit past the pattern itself. Our next step, we're gonna go to the router table. Do a flush trim on that. Everything else we do from here on out in order to generate the shape, will be done at the router table. And then before we're all done here, we'll have a look at cutting what's actually a compound miter. Again, looks complex, but it's gonna be pretty straight forward on the ends of these round pieces. So it jives with the rest of the clock. On both my pieces now using that flush trim router bit, I've trimmed my solid wood, my cherry, right down to the template that makes that solid wood exactly the right shape to match the curve on the clock. Now, the next thing I need to do is swap router bits have a look at the plan make sure I'm putting the right bid in. It's called out over there on the drawing. And with that, I can start to put a profile into this piece that starts to generate the look of the molding itself. Now remember, what we're after here is what's gonna look like a pretty complex profile. And the way that's gonna happen is that these two pieces will end up stacked one on top of the other. So with the bit I've got on the router table right now, I've done the pass here on this lower piece. Next change cutters again. That profile get cut into this piece and you can start to imagine that as I stack these one on top of the other, and they transition to each other, that's gonna give me the look of this complicated profile I need on these round moldings. So I'm gonna stop here, unplug my machine, change router bits, cut into this one, and we'll just keep working on this. Gonna be really cool when it's done Now we can really start to see how this plan is gonna come together. This is gonna be the lower part of our molding. This is gonna be the upper part of our molding. Once they're off of the templates, they're gonna stack don't take them off the templates yet. Remember, we've got a curve molding here that also gets mitered on the end. So we wanna take advantage of this nice straight surface back here to register on the fence on the miter saw, that's gonna let us very accurately get this mitered. Then we'll finally be ready to take them off of our patterns and turn them into the moldings we need for the clock. In order to get the molding mitered. What we need to do is actually do a compound miter here on a sliding miter sauce. So what that means is that I've got the angle of the sauce set at 45 degrees. I've also got the bevel of the saw set at 45 degrees. So I worked off of my drawings and I found the layout line that I need, which tells me the length from the center line out here to the edge. Now this is so cool that with that square edge up against the fence on the miter saw I can very easily get on my layout line out here. And make this compound cut. So envision what's gonna happen here. Once this has applied to the face of the clock, another piece of trim is gonna be angling back this way with a 45 degree cut on it. That's why this one needs to be done at 45 in both directions, compound miter. So I'm gonna swing my saw around I'll make the same cut on the other end. Do the same thing to my other piece of laminated molding. We're real close to having our finished piece of trim here. Couple of more steps since I saw you last, here's what I've done. I went to the bandsaw and I cut this to width after I had stacked my two pieces of molding together. So now it's pretty cool. Look at how complicated this appears. There's the shape from the drawing that we're producing for the clock. Complicated though it appears, pretty simple to make because it was done in steps. Now, the way this whole thing comes together is that I've got a second piece of molding here. This is what's called the return. This is mitered to match into this piece. So on the side of the clock, that's gonna come back this way. Another piece, just like it. That's gonna come back this way. This needs just a little bit of sanding where that curve was cut. There is another molding profile that gets put into here using a router bit. So the moral of the story here is when you look at stuff like this and it looks complex, follow the directions break it down into small bites. You can produce pretty complicated looking moldings by this by doing it a step at a time, a profile at a time. And by the time you laminate them together cut the angles that you need on the ends of them. You have great looking pieces of moldings. That really were pretty easy to make