Hi.
I am attempting to cooper some bent laminations I created. My goal is a sort of scultpural vessel…
Does anyone have any experience or advice on coopering curves? Stright coopering is simple enough on the table saw or jointer but with the curve it is, as expected, more difficult. My thought was that the planer would be a good method: simply build a tapered wedge and send the piece through on this wedge. Well it works fine for one side but then once you flip it to do the other side it presents itself flat to the planer while on this wedge jig. I’ve tried sandwhiching the laminations so that they stay in their original angle, but then there are voids beneath each edge where the infeed/outfeed rollers press down the piece.
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks
-T
Replies
One flew over the coopers nest
I've done coopered lids for boxes on the router table, but with straight segments. For this, I made a two-sided jig, one side to hold the still-square piece, and the other side to hold the partially-coopered segment for the second cut. This arrangement uses a vertical router bit of the appropriate angle (the angle being based on the desired number of segments).
I haven't seen horizontal bits in the typical angles, but I haven't really looked. But, with a jig to hold the curved laminations in place (very solidly), that might work on either a router table or a shaper.
An alternative approach might be to construct a fixture to hold a spokeshave at the appropriate angle, swinging it through an arc matching the curve of your laminations.
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