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Pattern Routing |
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Completed
bookcase with corbels. |
The
pattern routing process is pretty straightforward. Draw a pattern
of the desired piece to size onto some thin plywood, carefully
cut it out and then use it to produce all your pieces. Tape
the pattern to your material and roughly cut the curve using
a bandsaw or jigsaw. Bring the piece to the router table for
final cutting. The bearing from the router bits runs along the
plywood pattern, and the cutter cuts the wood flush to the pattern.
To demonstrate the process, I'll use my recently completed bookcase
project. Since some of the bookcase's design was inspired by
the Mission style, I added four corbels under the top. In order
to look the best, all four needed to be identical.
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| Project
plan. |
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Corbel
dimensions. |
The first step was to transfer my drawing to some 6mm Baltic-birch
plywood. I find this type of plywood's best feature is its lack
of voids within. I was careful in making my master pattern,
as every bump, notch, or ding would be repeated in each final
piece that I cut. To cut along my pencil line, I used a fine
blade in the scroll saw and carefully sanded the piece until
I was satisfied that all the curves flowed well and that there
were no bumps or wiggles in the sides.
One thing to note is that the corbels were quite small. Each
was 8" long, but only 1" wide at the top and 1/2"
wide along most of its length. This added a level of complexity
to the process. It would be far too dangerous to try to hold
such a narrow piece in my hands while routing the edges on a
router table. I could have found a jig for safely holding small
parts like this; however, I worked with a larger board and sliced
the finished piece off of this instead.
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Other Articles from this Issue |
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