Router Plane

Monday, August 28, 2017

Frank Lloyd Wright Desk Lamp - #4 Center Column, Boxes & Baffles

To cut the dado in the column I used my stacking dado set assembling two outside cutters and two inside chippers.  With that in place I set the height at ¼” then with some very careful measuring set the rip fence so the dado was centered on the piece.  A pass through the table saw and I had half the chase cut.  Another pass on the second half and I was done.

Here are some photos of what the chase looks like apart and clamped together for one last check before gluing up.


Next is to glue the column up.  I applied a coat of glue keeping it back from the edge of the chase to minimize the glue squeeze out that could run into the chase and clamped it all together.  This is the same photo as the test clamp and I used the same clamps in the same order as then so did not take another photo.  OK, actually I just forgot to take a photo when I had it all clamped up but really it did look the same.


After letting the glue cure overnight, I took off all the clamps and checked the column to make sure it was straight.  The result was mixed news.  Along the set of faces that had the glue joint things looked really good.  However, the other two faces have a bit of curve to them.  The column is just under 2” wide and 44” long with maybe 4 or 5 hundredths of an inch gap in the center.  Not much but enough that I wanted to correct it.

I don’t have a jointer and the curve is to gentle for my long hand plane to take care of so I have to use a different method.  I start by taking my 8’ level and clamping it to the fence on the table saw.  That gives me a straight edge more than twice the length of the column.  This means I can take the column then set the high points against the level so the curve shows up as a gap between the level and column.   Next the width of cut is set so it just barely skims the end of the column.  As the piece moves down the level the cut removes the curve and I end up with a face as straight as the level.  Flipping the piece over I set the newly trued face against the level reset the width of cut to skim a bit off and make the cut.  It took a couple of times resetting the fence since I was trying to remove the high ends and just graze the bottom of the curve. 


Setting the column aside to see if was going to remain flat I took the cutoff from the board the column was made from cut it slightly over the column width and glued up about a 14” long solid blank for the cap.  I only needed a 2” piece but something that short is dangerous and difficult to machine.  The excess will not go to waste I will keep it as a turning blank to be used on the lathe for something later.


With that done I could get started on roughing out the boxes and spacers.  The left hand drawing at right shows the boxes highlighted.  The right hand one has the spacers highlighted.

From the original board, I had enough material for two of the boxes.  The third needed to come from another board.  As you can see the left board end is in pretty poor condition.  The good news is that it is nearly one inch thick so I have some material to work with and clean up.   Besides the pieces for the boxes I had some cutoffs that were big enough for the spacers.


Following the same process as before I cut to rough length, hand planed 1 straight edge, ripped to rough width, checked for warp (none found) cup (a little) and bow (a tiny bit).  Next is using the thickness sander and 80 grit paper to remove defects, flatten and get to a consistent thickness.  When done here are the parts for everything except for the base.


After letting the column set for a few days I checked it for straight, flat and true along with the baffles and everything was good to proceed.  Right now, all these pieces need additional sanding as they were left with either an 80 or 120 grit surface.  I put 150 grit abrasive in the thickness sander, marked the pieces with a pencil, ran them through until the pencil marks were gone, changed the grit to 220 and repeated the process.  No photo here as they look the same as the shot above but feel smoother.  Here let me touch them for you – ooh, aah very smooth 😊.  I am not done though because hard maple is a closed grain wood and when I apply a finish if there are ANY scratches they will stick out like a sore thumb.  

Next is to cut the baffles to their final size.  Unfortunately, after cutting to length on the chop saw I had set a couple of the baffles on their end so I could set the rip width centered on the glue joint.  When I turned away to get my ruler a gust of wind blew them off the bench and they both landed on the concrete floor crushing a corner.  I was not happy but it was my own fault for setting them up that way.  The fix is to take a damp cloth and using a hot iron steam the area to re-inflate the crushed cells.  Here are before and after photos of the corner.



Next Up – Fitting Column Cap, Column Dados & Starting the Base

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