So I would like to make this jewelry box, but I can’t figure out how to cut the curved four sides of this box. The sides without the top is about 4 inches tall. At first I thought it might be a large router bit, but I have not been able to find one. Was a band saw used for this? Unfortunately I can only cut 6 in. piece with my band saw. Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Replies
Check out making a cove cut w a table saw on YouTube.
Good luck
I've had good luck with a wooden plane with a curved bottom and a Hock radiused blade. Takes a while to make the plane, but it's worth it and you end up with a unique tool. I ended up making 3 planes, one for each radius of blade that was available. Used them for sculpting the sides of a large stand for my church and for other things like a concave curved knife block. Just be persistent in shaping the plane bottom.
That helps, both good ideas. Might use a combination of the two...thanks.
Yes it looks like a lot of hand work; I second joeuhr's suggestions. The cove process with a saw blade may also take out quite a bit of material so that would be a good start, then finish it with hand work.
There are several means to do this.
It has probably been done in a professional shop using a shaper. Tim Rousseau does very similar work in this series and also uses a large router bit for the same effect. https://www.finewoodworking.com/videoworkshop/2019/07/danish-modern-desk-with-tim-rousseau
For such a small piece, I would suggest that the best approach would be to use a hand plane. No4 would do this nicely. Use a marking guage to mark the depth of cut on either side and plane to a nice even curve. Follow with sandpaper.
You can also use a tablesaw to cut a cove in some scrap. Stick sandpaper to that and you can use it to shape small pieces to match the curve. Don't try to use the tablesaw to cut the workpiece, except perhaps to knock off corners.
You could also find or make a moulding plane to match, but that is probably overkill for the project in question.
Finally, you could fix the piece to a jig and pass it by either a table or band saw blade, rotating it very slightly each time. This is not particularly safe or wise, so why not have a go with the hand plane - cheap and very, very satisfying to do.
It looks to me as though the table saw cove cut technique was used, and the resulting workpiece was then ripped in half down the middle to provide the asymmetric shape shown. One coved board with a length equal to a side plus the front would therefore yield all four pieces after ripping and crosscutting. I would then sand the coved surfaces, unless you happen to have a round molding plane.
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