Wooden pedestal column Part 1
What really caught my interest was the router jig that had to be made in order to make the round column. This is the result of a first time try out of making columns.
For this sort of woodworking project, test cuts are a necessity. Most times I just wing it 🙂 but for all the wood I was going to use I wanted to play a little safe. This starts out as an 8 sided column. That means all 8 boards require a 22.5 degree bevel cut on both long sides.
Getting ready for glue up. This was probably the most difficult part. The 8 sided plates (stop sign shaped boards on the ends) are what was necessary to assist in assembly. At least that’s what the plan called for (plan was found in a Fine Woodworking magazine).
It’s true that you can never have enough clamps! Clamps, strings, whatever is available to keep it together.
Not exactly perfect but onward we go! The end cap 8 sides boards are not really that critical for the purposes of appearance but the imperfect shape did cause some alignment issues.
But that’s nothing we can’t take care of later. At least I hope so. 🙂 Now I have to make two perfect circles. Who needs a fancy jig anyway. I screwed this thin piece of plywood scrap to the router, measured a distance from the router bit to a screw which will act as a pivot point for the center of the circle.
I plunged the router and had a perfect circle in about 15 seconds.
The column is in place, the sled is made and I’m ready to make that eight sided column nice and round.