Replies

1. 
   quatersawn | Apr 18, 2002 09:17pm | #1

   Hi Dave, go buy yourself some good band clamps. Once you've cut the tapered staves, you'll need to bevel them to the appropriate degree. I have always like to put them on a sled to do this, so the side of the sled rides along the fence, not a bevel, which could catch on something, or move under the fence's edge, etc. Once you've completed that task, you'll need to set up for your biscuit or spline. A few biscuits, top middle and bottom should do fine. The real key is having cut the bevels and kept the wood nice and flat. A sled allows you to calmp it down. A spline would work nicely too, and probably easier to set up and do. Once everything is cut, lay them all out and dry fit them. If that looks ok, lay them out as you woulk to dry fit them, but this time, put some strips of duct tape beneath them. Use a white glue, or one that gives you a little time to assemble it. Then insert your bisuits or splies, glue your edges, and basically roll the thing up like a piece of carpet. It will be messy, and keep an eye on your ends to keep them from wandering. Once it is together, put a band clamp on, and remove the tape. You don't want it stuck in a joint. Stand the unit up and statr tapping the ends back into perpindicular. You'll see. Them proceed with more clamps. You may have to tape some of the bands to the cylinder so they don't squeeze themselves to the tapered end and loose pressure. Hope this all makes sense. The sled is the key to keeping the wood flat during the bevel, that will make the joints nice and tight without a lot of pressure to correct a bow or dip.

2. 
   theRev | Apr 19, 2002 02:41am | #2

   Dave,

   I just got thru making a couple of octagonal umbrella stands. I didn't use splines or biscuits and they seem plenty strong. It your peices are milled carefully, they should align themselves and I find that splines and biscuits really slow down the glue-up process. I also would think that they might make it really difficult to get that last piece or two in place during glue-up. Do a dry run with your glue-up. Lay your pieces inside down on your table and tape the up/outside pieces together tightly with masking tape. Roll it up and check your fit. Rather than band clamps, especially in your case since it will be tapered, I would recommend you use some surgical tubing rather than band clamps. It's cheaper and fits the form better, and you won't have any worries about the glue excess sticking to it.

   Scott

1. 
   StanleyNiemiec | Apr 19, 2002 07:47am | #3

   I was somewhat interested in this thread for several reasons.  I would have thought that, like with any "compound" miter, some adjustment of the blade angle settings would have been required to get a tight joint.  I am surprised that this has been overlooked.  Am I missing something or instead making it overly complex?????

1. 
   WKellington | Apr 19, 2002 08:00am | #4

   Hi Dave:  I have recently seen a router bit advertised called a "bird mouth" bit.  This thing cuts an angled notch into the beveled edge.  It looks like it might give you a self aligning joint with a lot of glue area. 

   You might check Lee Valley.  I think I saw one in their catalog.  Has anyone out there used one of these?  And can you share your reactions?

   Thanks

2. 
   theRev | Apr 19, 2002 12:52pm | #5

   You're right. No one has touched on the compound angle yet. But a search here at Knots would give up a few threads and a few links where the angles could be found.

   Scott

3. 
   BenM | Apr 19, 2002 02:33pm | #6

   The tablesaw will get you close to the correct angle but it's likely you will need to adjust some of the edges with a handplane to get an exact fit. I don't own a tablesaw so I don't know how good an edge it produces but I assume you would want to run a plane over each edge to get a perfect glue surface anyway.

3. 
   Dutchy1 | Apr 19, 2002 10:05pm | #7

   Hello Dave

   On http://www.woodworking.org/WC/mitercalc.html I found interesting possibilities to find out the right blade angle and mitre gauge angle for any polygonal column.

   Succes

   Ruud Joling The Netherlands

4. 
   quatersawn | Apr 20, 2002 12:06am | #8

   Yes Dave, the bevel is critical to a nice tight fit for your cylinder. But am I missing something here? Wouldn't that be somewhat self evident?  But again, I would like to stress the importance of a nice even flat cut. You can have the perfect angle, but if the wood was not flat when the bevel was cut, you're going to be doing some hard core clamping and manipulating to close the joints.  I have glued up many cylinders and it's messy work that typically needs to be done quickly. Simple math provides the proper bevel angle, the sled provides a means to use hold down clamps to run it through the table saw, so you don't have to worry about holding the wood flat, while pushing it through the blade, should the wood be warped or twisted. But we all know wood is flat, right? I agree with one of the other comments about no spline or biscuit, I've never used any, and I've glued up 6,8,10,12 sided cylinders, 3 to 4 in length. And if you do? The last one will be tough to get in.  By the way, How tall will your cylinder be? The taller the cylinder the more likely it is to have some kind of warp or twist to deal with. I will also draw out the footprint of the cylinder on paper first. It helps me to set the angle with smaller more acurate measuring devices,  and check my sizes. If you use the exact angle, as prescribed by the math, and your saw can cut it, the only variable left is keeping it flat. good luck.