For the curved flange along the bottom of the beam I was faced with a bit of a challenge. One way of making the beam would hae been to laminate up a wide, flat curved piece from strips of 1/8 inch thick wood on a clamping pattern similar to how the curved projection screen frame was made. But this would have be too time consuming. There are eight beams and each curved flange would have had to be clamped up and left to set over night. Instead I decided to work in the other direction. I cut out curved strips using routing templates and the router table. Here are the parts for two beams. I made each flange side in two parts to make them easier the handle and get more efficient use of materials.
The flange strips were then sandwiched on either side of the beam center. The overall width of the flange was to be 3 inches, so minus the 3/4 inch center, each side strip needed to be 1 1/8 inches wide. To get the width I laminated together either 3/4", 1/4" & 1/8" or 1/2", 1/2" ans 1/8" scrap MDF. I've pretty much run out of the 1 inch thick material.
In the close up picture you can see the fillet of white spackle that's being added to all the inside corners to give the finished beam the appearance of a solid casting.
No comments:
Post a Comment