Hi everyone, long time no post
I am starting a project that involves curved tapered legs on a small side table. They are approx 16" high by 12" wide and curved in a 31" radius. Tapered from 3/4 at the bottom to 1 1/2" at the top. I have two choices: the first is the traditional way, by making tapered laminations from solid stock and then laying them up on a form in a vacuum bag. The other, is as shown in FWW 231 Feb 2013 where the guy uses solid stock kerfed, for the former, outer veneers from the show stock and then edge banding on the sides (forgetting the steam bent bit!) My worry with the latter is spring back. With this method you have essentially 3 plys - the remaining material after kerfing the core then a sawn veneer on either side. I could end up with more than 1/4" spring back. where as with tapered laminations I could reduce the spring to less than 1/32 by using 9 plys. Perhaps the core is "floppy" enough to not spring back but still be held by the face veneers. The down side of the tapered laminations is that the thickness varies quite a lot over a short distance so even starting at 2mm at one end they need to be 4mm at the top which is still thick for a bending form (sorry about converting to metric!).... Any thoughts or experience welcome.
Thanks. David
I am starting a project that involves curved tapered legs on a small side table. They are approx 16" high by 12" wide and curved in a 31" radius. Tapered from 3/4 at the bottom to 1 1/2" at the top. I have two choices: the first is the traditional way, by making tapered laminations from solid stock and then laying them up on a form in a vacuum bag. The other, is as shown in FWW 231 Feb 2013 where the guy uses solid stock kerfed, for the former, outer veneers from the show stock and then edge banding on the sides (forgetting the steam bent bit!) My worry with the latter is spring back. With this method you have essentially 3 plys - the remaining material after kerfing the core then a sawn veneer on either side. I could end up with more than 1/4" spring back. where as with tapered laminations I could reduce the spring to less than 1/32 by using 9 plys. Perhaps the core is "floppy" enough to not spring back but still be held by the face veneers. The down side of the tapered laminations is that the thickness varies quite a lot over a short distance so even starting at 2mm at one end they need to be 4mm at the top which is still thick for a bending form (sorry about converting to metric!).... Any thoughts or experience welcome.
Thanks. David