I mentioned in my last blog that the fluting of the tapered column was a challenge, as I executed several scenarios before finding a method that worked. Not that this is the only method – I am sure there are numerous other ways to accomplish the fluting. However, the tapering of the column made this procedure more difficult.

Here is the overall model of the Music Stand featured in this year’s Williamsburg Conference – Working Wood in the 18th Century.

I started the process by isolating the portion of the column that is fluted. From left to right in the following picture:

     1. The overall tapered column with flutes

     2. The overall column but without the flutes

     3. The middle section of the column that incorporates the flutes

     4. The middle section without the square cutout for the height adjustment rod

     5. A copy of 4. with a wedge marked out that represents 1/12th of the cylinder.

Here is an X-ray view of the colum with the wedge marked out. There are 12 flutes that align with 12 wedges, and I found  it easier to do one flutted wedge, then copy later.

After isolating the wedge and removing waste edges and faces, I created a profile shape of the flute.

I rotated the wedge on the red axis to align the tapered centerline of the flute on the blue axis. I used Follow Me to spin the flute profile shape about its centerline axis. I scaled the wedge by a factor of 10 to prevent any small gaps in the flute’s face.

After selecting all, executing Intersect with Selection, and cleaning up the waste, the wedge and flute remain as shown below.

Now the full tapered colomn can be created by rotate copying the one wedge into 11 more copies, the resulting column looks like the following:

After smoothing out all the extra edges and scaling back by a factor of 0.1, the fluted column is complete.

Here is the video:

I believe I could have carved two of these in mahogany in the shop in the time it took me to do this in SketchUp. I plan to make one of these Music Stands to use as an iPAD Pro stand-up desk station.

Tim

@KillenWOOD

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