I have been wanting to build a three legged piecrust table with a tilt top for some time. I have been trying to think of a good way to shape the top edge in an effecient manor and leave the hand work to a minimum. My thought was to make a templete out of mdf and use different bushings and bearings to shape the edge. Does anyone have a better way or any tips?
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Replies
matt,
There are so many inside corners on the molding of a piecrust tabletop that working the mold with a router is impractical. Leaving the inside corners radiussed (is that a word?) would look like a cop-out, imo.
Part of the charm of a piecrust tripod table is the obvious hand work that it requires. Again, my opinion only. Nearly all of them have carved feet and acanthus leaves on legs and fluting and other ornament on the shaft. Leaving the handework to a minimum would yield up a different table altogether. Not necessarily worse, but different.
Ray
Ray, I did not mean to imply that I was against handwork, only that I want to keep it to a minimum. Cleaning up inside corners is a walk in the park compared to trying to hand carve all those curves. I am just trying to find an effecient way of making them without sacrficing the details.
matt,
I am not averse to using power tools myself. In this instance, there are several obstacles to trying to rout the molding. First is the profile itself. Most of these tables have a fairly shallow "dish". So the commercially available cove and qtr-round cutters will produce too deep (tall) a profile. The expense of a custom made cutter plus the time to make an accurately shaped template to guide the cutter, vs. the time to simply carve the thing as it was done originally, is essentially a trade-off, imo, unless one is planning to make a run of the things. I've made less than a half-dozen pie-crust tops over the years, only two of them were the same size (made as a pair) , so the chances of being able to use the template again in a one-off (custom) shop are slim, in my experience.
As Rob says, once you have established the parameters of the moldings, with stepped rabbets/fillets, the carving itself goes pretty smoothly, the profile of the cove being determined by the sweep of an appropriate gouge, the bead at top needs only have its corners rounded over with an upside-down gouge and a skew chisel after it is defined.
http://www.davidraypine.com/portfolio.php?spgmGal=Tables&spgmPic=13&spgmFilters=#pic
Ray
Hi all, I am three tilt top tea tables two for customers and one for me. I was able to dish out the top with a router and a jig I found in the Norm Vandal book. As far as the edge goes straight up carving is a must. The edge is only like 3/16" deep but visually it looks deeper. One thing I did do was make some tiny scrapers out of hack saw blades.
The edge pattern is short but repeated many times so you will be a pro by the time 360 degrees comes around.This is the table: http://www.sapfm.org/gallery/viewpiece.php?id=291
xml,
Nice work. At the risk of being hypercritical, I will suggest that the top is mounted 1/4 turn "off". That is, the battens on the back, to restrain warp (and for tradition) ought to run at right angles to the grain of the top, rather than parallel to the grain.
To my eye, at least, that is the only fault I can find with Rob M's top-- it appears to me that the top ought to be rotated on his table, about 1/16- 1/8 th revolution, so the grain is parallel to the baseboard of the room, when tipped. Almost like he decided at the last minute, that the "segment of the circle" portion of the top should be at top and bottom, instead of the serpentine segment of the carving.
Not a big deal, but visually, just a little jarring.
Gaw, I really like those big, one board tops, tho.
Ray
Ray,
You spotted the flaw in the top that bugs me the most. I cut the outline first and then dished the top. The growth rings were such that the grain pattern shifted enough to throw the orientation off. If I had it to do over again, I would have dished the top first and then cut the outer profile. As I said above, I'm just not cut out to do this kind of work. I console myself on this point, by looking at the work of John Townsend. His carved pieces are inspired masterpieces, while his Federal period stuff is rather bland, almost folk art like. Apparently his veneering and inlay skills weren't up to those of his carving.
Is the top on your pie crust a glue up?
Rob Millard
Edited 2/22/2008 9:48 pm ET by RMillard
Rob,
"Is the top on your pie crust a glue up? "
It is, indeed. Seamed right down the middle. Widest stock that I could find at the time.
BTW, I thought the toes on those feet of yours were just about right.
The low relief of the Townsend school leafage carvings on the card tables and highboy legs take some getting used to, for my taste. It is without doubt very distinctive, but I like the Philadelphia stuff better. But those ball and claw feet, and the shells, are wonderful. Personal taste, I suppose.
Speaking of veneer and inlay, today I visited the home of a client who just returned from a trip to find that her furnace had gone toes-up during her absence, allowing water-pipes to freeze. The resulting plumbing leaks damaged a very nice federal game table with serpentine front and demi-lune ends, with an old, possibly original finish. It will be a nice bit of work to try and repair the damage, without doing even more in the process.
Ray
That is beee-utiful.
Following the path of least resistance makes rivers and men crooked.
Matt,
Speaking as someone with very limited carving skills, it is not worth the trouble to use the router for anything other than relieving the center and roughing out (free hand) the stepped rabbets, which will then be hand carved to form the profile. The real challenge is the miters between the segments, and here the router is of no use. As I said above, I'm at best a mediocre carver, but I found the top to be not only easy, but quick and kind of fun; the knee and column carving on the other hand weren't as enjoyable.
Rob Millard
http://www.americanfederalperiod.com
Rob
That is a killer pie-crust table. Love it. That board is just nice as it can be. How about a couple more photos??
dan
dan,
You keep drooling like that and you're gonna need a waterproof keyboard. He's amazing aint he?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Dan,
Thanks
I looked for more photos of the table, but could not find them. I know I had a photo of the top up, and of the feet.
The board came from Irions.
I was very pleased with the top and the feet. I was less pleased with the band of flowers around the base of the post, the carving on the knees, and the ball.
Rob Millard
Rob
It seems like no matter what you make- there's always something you would do another way the next time. I guess that's what keeps you going??
In the case of the table, the top has to be nice to make you look at the other features.
I haven't been doing much with mahogany these days. Seems like I'm backed up with walnut and maple. Its a cycle. I love to carve nice dense mahogany.
dan
Rob ,
In a word , Exquisite !
dusty
RMillard,If you call that limited carvings skills I'd like to see some work done by someone that you thought had really good carving skills.Maybe I'm not qualified to say but I'd say your carving skills are a bit past limited, and I mean that in the most admiring way.RonIf you're too open minded your brains will fall out.
Edited 2/18/2008 10:39 pm ET by Ronaway
Thanks Rob, I worked for a shop where they did piecrusts very similar to yours(maybe a copy of Isreal Sacks?). They used a router templete used off the center point and routed all of the scallops less the inside corners. It was fairly quick but I was wondering if anyone had a better way. You should be able to rout the majority of it and clean up the corners with a bit of hand work. One bit of constructive critisim to you, your lead toe on your table that you posted is a bit skinny. While I'm not as capable as you are, I do have an eye and I always welcome good critisim when ever I can find it. The rest of your table looks quite nice although the picture quality is not that good. I will say that the table you selected is quite awesome.Keep up the good work, Matt
P.S. I had only one dealing with Lou Irion and that was when I was going to school at Rio Grande. He was a prick to deal with over the phone so I didn't do any business with him. MANY of my classmates got screwed buy him and I was just wondering if he is the kind of guy that you have to actully go to his mill to buy stuff or has he changed since I knew him(1998)?
Matt,
When I called him for the piece for the table top, he was very helpful; he even cut off the exact size piece I needed from a larger board ( at his own insistence). When I talked to him later, he didn't seem interested in my business, so I have had no further dealings with him. This would have been in 1998-1999, although I did not make the table until 2002.
I used several originals as examples. The legs and feet were from a photo in some issue of The Magazine Antiques ( the skinny toe is straight from the book). The top was based on the Heller/Clarkson book, with just some size changes to fit the board I had. The post was from some auction catalog a customer sent me ( I can't remember which one).
I will never make another one; I'm strictly an inlay guy from now on.
Rob Millard
http://www.americanfederalperiod.com
very nice
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