Posts made by Peter Gunn

I've had a time with the zoom feature with middle trackball on mighty mouse. Randomly stops working. Zoom extents and it's back on track.

Dave: Oh, I get it now. Yes, the path is rounded out of the cut. Not like a stopped chamfer. So you drew that path in a scaled up model and used followme?

Just marking the point on either edge where I want the roundover to begin and doing the deed on the router table. I do a climb cut on one edge because of the direction of the grain.

Dave: I was going for no roundover on the first 3 1/2" from the top curve on the inside edges--the back edge of the inside face and the front edge of the inside face. That may not be real clear. Probably best to post the finished product when I finish the product. Too busy building the last 3 days.

Jeff: Thanks for the info re weld.rb. That'll make a big difference.

Jeff, this is excellent. This method produces better geometry at the corners (duplicates what happens on the router table in my shop). I noticed you had an "invert selection" choice on your context menu. I installed that ruby script, and it's a real time saver.

I had a couple of questions. What are you using that invokes the dialog boxes that say "find faces for this curve" and "close curve?" Not sure what you were doing there.

Also, am I correct to assume that if I carried the roundover to the top of the leg instead of stopping it short as in the tut, that I would need to draw a line extending that edge beyond the curve at the top for the followme path, then copying the top curve and using that to intersect with model after using the followme tool to create the roundover? Seems like that should work. I did use your method to create a rectangular form with all edges rounded over. That worked beautifully.

Thanks Pkast. I wasn't clear about what needed rounding over in my original post. This leg has an outside face and inside face. The top of the inside face abuts the front leg of a legrest. The overlap is 3 1/2" so I don't want to roundover the top 3 1/2" of the edges on the inside face. The edges of the outside face are rounded over from top down. The curved top edges are not rounded over. Sorry for the confusion.

That said, these tuts are very helpful, and I now have several ways to approach the problem. Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to tackle his problem.

Thanks very much guys.

If you have the time, Jeff, I could always use an easier version! But this is very helpful. Thanks again.

Jeff: Not quite but you've already done stuff I couldn't do. I've attached a file with comments to explain what's needed.

Leg_round_comments.skp

I can't figure this out. I have a component (leg for a legrest) that needs a roundover applied. But there's only one right angle in the piece and one edge is curved (and doesn't get rounded over). I think I've ready all the threads on roundovers, but this problem seems unique.

I can't believe there's not a way to do this but it's got me stumped. Skippy attached. If anyone has a spare 3 hours to solve this problem, I'd appreciate it.

Leg.skp

Dave:

Well, I’d eliminate the front pipe clamps! I rarely use them. You don’t need all that clamping pressure, and it’s much faster to clamp something to the front edge of the bench by removing a few MDF inserts and using some Bessey tradesmen clamps. I also use Besseys to clamp the bottom of the board to the planing beam if I need to make the workpiece as secure as I can. And, of course, by eliminating the pipes, you don’t have to drill all those pesky holes!

I’ve got the smaller jorgensen clamp heads as seen in the article. I like the ones you’ve included in your drawing. Easier to manipulate.

I took the planing wedge off since I kept running into it! It’s easy enough to clamp a stop to the front edge or just clamp the workpiece to the edge and the planing beam without a stop, depending on the size.

I think John added a torpedo level to one end of the planing beam since that article came out; I haven’t done that yet but it’s a great idea.

I’d make the bench a little deeper front to back. I have it stuck up against one wall in my garage and have found that a little more space to throw the rasps, planes, marking guages etc. while I’m in the middle of work would be nice.

Finally, I’d revisit the design to insure that wood movement is accounted for in keeping the benchtop flat. Some of the doug fir planks are perpendicular to the top and, of course, move with changes in humidity. My top isn’t dead flat (not that I ever expected it to be) but I don’t recall if I actually glued the perpendicular pieces to the horizontal top pieces to insure that any movement of the perpendicular pieces occurred below the top.

I work in an old garage that has a sloping concrete floor so I have one end blocked up which makes chopping on the bench a bit vibratory, if you know what I mean. But it’s been a good bench. Hope this helps. I’ll be out there tonight. If anything else occurs to me, I’ll let you know.

Dave:

Looks like you're going to build the pipe clamp bench from FWW. I built it some years ago pre-SU. Love your model. Just be aware that the heads of the pipe clamps that run perpendicular to the length of the bench tend to flop. Engaging them with a clamping block is a bit of a pain. I think you can make a batch of clamping blocks of various lengths that would fit over the heads to keep them vertical. I've enjoyed my bench, though I'd make some mods if I were doing it again to fit the way I work. Good luck.

Susan:

Preview is built-in to the Mac OS and has basic editing abilities. Check it out and see if it does what you need. I discovered this when I was needing to resize and touch up some images.