Footstool update- ball and claw foot

Here's the fourth and most challenging foot- the ball and claw.  As with the rest of what we do it looks very complicated, but there is a process.  The roughing out, fairing and layout are similar to the other legs.

The knee is flatter for the carvings and the ankle is more square in order to lead into the toes.

This is the layout.  The outer circle is the max diameter of the ball.   That happens around the bottom knuckle.  The inner circle is the bottom circumference of the ball.  The toes all point to the corners.

We sawed in to define the toes.

We then carve straight up from the outer circle to get the maximum circumference of the ball, which we mark with a pencil line.

 We then chop down from the ridges we created when we bandsawed out the rough blank to find where the ball goes under the claw.  Once we have that point we can start to shape the ball.  This is done with a chisel whose sweep is the same as the circumference of the ball, which helps guarantee consistency in the shape.

The ball is starting to take shape.  We also form the bottom of the ball at this point.

Next we remove the web between the fingers to facilitate the carving of the fingers.

With that done just the shaping of the claws and fingers is left.   This is the part with the least process and most "doing it by feel" and "making it look good."

I am happy with the way it came out.

Tripod table update: construction complete

The construction on the tripod table is finally finished.  I was able to make the cupped top work by pulling it down with screws and adjusting its underside as well as the top fo the rails.  One of my favorite features of this table the overhang looks radically different depending on what angle from which you look at it.

Front View- normal overhang

Side View- drastic overhang

Now it is finishing time.

New Project: Footstool

One of the really cool projects that we do at school is a footstool with 4 different legs.  We are doing it in a workshop, so about half the people in the program are all working on it at the same time.  The idea is to learn how to do 4 different style legs in one project instead of 4 separate projects.  Plus, at the end you have a really cool and unique footstool.

My dad got me this awesome set of carving chisels as an early Christmas present so I could use them on the footstool.

The first one we worked on was the pad foot.  The foot and back of the ankle are turned on the lathe.

We then trace the patter on 2 sides of the leg.  We take it to the bandsaw where we cut along the pattern lines on one side.  Then we tape it back together and cut along the pattern lines on the other side.  This gives us the rough shape in this picture.

After faring the surface (smoothing off the saw marks) it is time to start shaping.  This leg is circular all the way from the bottom up to the knee.  We make it round using the 5:7 method that I described in my chamfer and quarter rounds post from last year.  The inner line on each side is the shape to line.  The outer 2 lines are the cut to lines.  I used my 1" bench chisel and my rasp to remove the material between the 2 lines closest to each corner creating an octagon.

After you have an octagon, you just have to knock off the corners, which creates a 16 sided shape, then a 32 sided one and eventually the facets become so small you can file/ card scrape/ sand them away and your leg is round.

The same principle applies on the foot, but is a little harder to do because the diameter changes much more quickly.

Here is the rounded leg.  It just needs a little cleaning up and it will be done.

This is the beginning of the slipper foot, roughed out on the band saw. 

The faring had to be be done really well, because this is the only leg that is not rounded.  I had to take the same amount off of each side to keep the line formed at the corner straight.

After the faring was done, we traced the pattern of the footprint on the bottom of the foot.  There was an inner outline and an outer outline.  We chopped off the material from the outer outline straight up to form the basic shape of the foot.  We then beveled from the edge we just created on the top of the the foot back down to the bottom of the foot to get the final shape.

This is the footstool with the pad and slipper foot done and the other two legs roughed out.  At this point I glued the rails into the two finished feet, but not the other two.

With the rails glued in, I was able to fit and then roughly shape the transition pieces on the bandsaw.  Then I glued then in place.

With all the transition pieces in I could glue the support blocks on the inside and start removing the extra waste pieces from the outside of the post.

The shaping on the trifid foot was similar to the other two.  We used the same basic method to round the leg, but took away more material at the knee in order to leave it broader, because we are going to carve a shell on it.  Like the slipper, we traced the inner and outer footprint on the bottom of the the foot.  We removed the material straight up from the outer outline to form the general shape of the foot. 

We then beveled back down from the top edge we just created to the inner outline to give the foot depth.  This was a little trickier because the bevel did not stay at a consistant angle the whole time.  The rest of the the shaping of the foot happens after we carve a "sock" up the ankle.

Tripod table update

The tripod table has been moving along.  I wanted to post a few pictures of the cravings I did on the rails.

This is one of the bottom rails.  They connect the legs near the bottom.

This is one of the top rails.  They connect the legs right under the table.

This is all of the finished rails.

Here's the table all glued up and just waiting for the top.  At this point I took it out to the table saw, set the blade angle with the angle block and trimmed the top and bottom of the legs flush.  It was a little scary to run a basically finished project over the table saw, but it worked out.

So, Friday at the end of the day I took the face plate off of the top so I could attach it to the table and it cupped pretty badly. :(  I am going to have to talk to my instructors on Monday to see if it is salvageable.  I am really hoping to not have to make a new top.

New Project- Tripod table

After finishing the nightstand and toolbox, we have to complete 3 more projects to graduate- a table, a chair and a case piece.  I intend to do much more than that, but that is minimum.  The instructors want you to do a quicker project first, which usually means a table.  Many people do a demilune or a tilt top.  I didn't want to do those because I want to do a demilune with more decoration than they are willing to let me do right now and I don't like the way tilt tops look.  So, in talking to one of my instructors, he recommended I do a splayed leg table.  This, he thought, would be a good introduction to compound angles and thus would serve me well when it comes time to do the chair.  The hardest part of this project so far has definitely been drawing it.  It took a while to wrap my head around the angles and come up with proportions.

The overhang to the left looks way too dramatic in the drawing. 

The top looks like a UFO.  It is also to light to see well in this photo.

I tried a few different combinations of elements for the legs.

The project started with making an angle block.  This is just a wide block of wood that I can use to set the table saw to get consistant angles.  I set the table saw blade at the angle between the legs and the table top on my drawing using my bevel gauge.

Bevel gauge.  Good for setting and transferring angles.

I then ripped the block (cut it down its length) and then cross cut it (cut it across its width.)  This gave me the true angle between the top and the legs.

Angle block

I was able to use the same setting to cut the leg blanks.  Leg blanks are usually square, but we had to adjust the ones for this table because we wanted the stretchers to come into the leg at a 90 degree angle, but because there are only 3 legs they are at 60 degree angles to one another.  The solution was to make a pentagon shaped blank.  This allowed me to have 2 outside faces at 60 degrees to one another with the 2 inside faces being 90 degrees relative to those outside faces.  The 5th face is formed by cutting off the point formed by the two outside faces for purely aesthetic reasons.

Starting from a square blank and using the same table saw setting, I got a pentagon shaped leg blank.  The original corner from the square (top right) and the intersection of cut 1 and cut 2 are 90 degree angles where the rails will intersect the legs.

View of leg from above with rails intersecting from below and glue blocks glued on the outside.

After that, I turned the legs to the shapes I had drawn, leaving sections pentagon shaped for the stretchers.

Leg blank turning on the lathe with the main body of the leg turned down to a cylinder and the foot shaped. 

Close up of the foot and pommels (transition from blank shape to round).  You can also see the layout lines for the bead and coves.

close up of top pommel and layout of beads and thinnest part of the leg.

Finished leg ready for sanding.

Another view.

And another.

3 matching legs.

After the legs were done I cut the mortises in the pommels.  Then I cut the rails, using the angle block to set the miter fence on the table saw to the correct angle.  I then cut the tenons on the rails using the dado set on the table saw.  I used a follower block with the same angle cut it in so I could hold the angled end of the rail against the fence and push it safely across the blades.

Here's the legs with the top rails in.  You can see the mortises for the bottom rails on the pommels.

The bottom rails were a bit trickier to fit.  I cut them at the same time as the top rails, but they didn't fit.  After a few adjustments I got them there though.

Finally came the time to turn the top.  It is glued up from 3 pieces to form a 20 inch circle.  It was really exciting because it was the first time I have done an outboard turning.  That means the piece was too big to fit on the lathe normally, so the motor had to be slid down to the end so the top had room to spin.  The top is attached to the lathe by gluing a piece of plywood to it with a piece of paper in between, then screwing a face plate to the plywood.  The glue on the paper is strong enough to hold while it is turning, but the paper provides a clean break when you take the plywood off, leaving less clean up and reducing the risk of damaging your piece.

The 3 piece glue up for the top.  I had to put it on the lathe and turn it very slowly to mark a circle to bandsaw to.  After bandsawing the weight was more evenly distributed.

Mounted and ready to shape the outside to a perfect circle.  You can kind of see Gus in the background doing a more traditional inboard turning.

This thing was really moving when I turned the lathe on.  This is the second step- flattening the front.

Here I started to form the lip.  You have to form the outside before you remove the inside, because once the inside is gone, the outside can flex and you will not be able to remove material evenly.

From the side you can see I have also put a curve on the outside.  You can also see the very heavy cast iron tool rest for outboard turnings.

Close up of the edge.  From the outside there is a bead, a fillet and a cove.

Another shot of the primary shaping.

The whole thing is flat, except the nub in the middle.

I left the nub in the middle because when I tried to turn down to it, the knot ripped out.

So, I used my hand plane and card scrapper to flatten the middle after I took it off the lathe.  This way I was able to preserve most of the knot, the natural beauty of which I like.  I am still deciding wether to fill it with epoxy so it is completely flat or to just finish it the way it is.  My instructors differ on their opinions in this regard.

The finished top sitting on the the legs with both the top and bottom rails in.  I still need to cut the tops off the rails and legs after it is glued together, so it is flat across the top, so the top fits nicely.  Also, I am going to do some carving on the rails before I glue it up.

Here's a different view to illustrate what is funny about putting a round top on a tripod base.  When you look at it with two legs in line with one another, the overhang of the top seems absurdly long.