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Now, if you look at the picture of this piece, you will notice that the bottom rails and the sides have a nice, gentle curve added to them on the bottom profile. So what we are going to do is make a template out of 3 ¼ inches plywood and I am going to use a little strip of a trim, this is from our kitchen project that we did but it is perfect to bend for the curves. So, I will show you how that will stand now.
I begin by marking the center point of the lower rail using a tape measure. I know my piece is 28” long so I measure in 14” from both sides to find the true center then I strike a line at the center point. With the lower rail stock flashed with the back of my template stock, I mark the locations of the top, the sides as well as the center point. Next, I strike a horizontal line one inch up from the center point. This represents the highest point of the curve. I also strike a horizontal line 1/8 of an inch up for each of my side lines. I then drive in three finished nails into the three cross point locations I juts created.
Next, I place the bending strip in front of the two side nails but behind the middle nail. This ensures that the curve I draw will follow the proper path. The curve should peak at 1” at the center and terminate at the very end of each side. Keep in mind that the side nail placement depends on the thickness of your bending strip. Mine is an 8th of an inch thick so my nails were placed up 1/8” from the edge of the template.
I then cut the template down the size using my lines as a guide. I rough cut the curve on the bend saw and I try to keep the blade about 16th of an inch away from my line. I like to use a quarter inch blade on my 14” bend saw. In that way, I can cut complex curves pretty easy. I then use the oscillating spindle sander to get even closer to my line. Now, if you do not have an oscillating spindle sander, you could always use a regular sander just to get it down even closer to the line. You could use a file or even a pattern maker as rest but we are just fine.
But, the next step is going to be the smooth and fair of this curve. And the easiest way that I know to do that is to use a flexible sanding strip. I like to make mine out of 8” thick plywood, this is 8” thick birch. Now, when I make this, I like to make them three and three quarter inches wide by 10 inches long and that is just because of the size of your standard sheet of sand paper. I can cut it in half and arrive perfectly around this piece.
Now, in order for this to work properly, you will be needing handles. So usually, I take some scrap wood, some cut offs from pieces that we have made earlier and I will epoxy those, you just use some 5 minute epoxy to the front and to the back and, this actually givers us some really good handles. You might want to round over or sand over the corner so you do not get cut for any splinters but that works perfectly for handles.
After cutting a sheet of 120 grid sandpaper in half, I tape the half sheet to my flexible strip using regular masking tape. With the template clamped in my bench, I begin sanding. Although the strip is flexible, it is rigid enough that it does not follow any of the small values. Kind of like a hand plain. The result is a nice, smooth and even curve.
Sometimes, I find it helpful to mark the entire curve surface with a pencil before sanding. This allows me to identify low spots and this is simple visual indicator for when the job is done. Now, I simply transfer the template curve to our actual work piece. Then I rough cut the curve at the bend saw just like with the template. Now, instead of sanding to the lines, I am going to use our template and a fresh trim router bit to establish a perfect copy of our template curve. To do this, I use double stick tape to attach my work piece to the template. Take the time to ensure that the template is positioned properly before applying the pressure that activates the tape.
Whenever routing without the 8th of the fence, it is a good idea to install a safety pin. Starting with the work piece against the pin, I carefully engage the router bit and the bearing on the flesh trim bit will ride against the template and turn away the excess material on our work piece. The pebbles I am using keep my hands safely away from the bit but still allowing me to control the work piece. Notice that once the bit contacts the work piece, it is okay if you loose contact with the safety pin.
With all of my parts cut, I begin sanding each piece with my random orbit sander. I start with 120 grid followed by 180 grid. I do one final sanding by hand with the grid using 180 grid. Finally, I break all the edged using a folded piece of 180 grid. Using a chamfering bit and my plunge router, I create a chamfer on the bottom of each of the legs. Now, whenever you make a square bottom leg, it is always a good idea to chamfer the bottom edge in order to prevent unsightly chip out. A little hand sanding softens the edge and gets rid of any burn marks.
I could see I have one of the side preassemblies here in the clamps and it is drying already. Also notice that I actually pre-finish the parts before I glue them up. In some cases and this is one of them and particular I find it a lot easier to do that and saves me a lot of time and to finish itself is quite a bit better because I can get into all the nukes and crannies and everything is nice and smooth when it comes together and any glue squeeze out, I just wipe that a little bit away and the glue sitting on top of the finish so it is easy enough to clean away. You do not really have to worry too much in this case, the way the joints are constructed, none of my finish or locker none of them actually got into the joints.
So all those remained intact and I using the domino I have a lose trending contractions and all of my tenons are sitting in the bag and have no contact with finish at all. So, it makes a really nice, tight, secure joints and a cleaner looking finish,
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