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N Hurst N Hurst is offline
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Default Help With Sanding Column Flutes

On Jul 22, 10:49 am, Tom Watson wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:36:53 -0700 (PDT), N Hurst
wrote:



I finished the shaping portion of some fluted columns last night and
ran into a problem when it same time to sand out the char marks my
router bit left in the wood.


I was routing the flutes in 8' 1x4 red oak, and while my long runs
were pretty good (only 4-5 char marks over 14 7 foot flutes), I still
charred up about half of the beginning and end of the flutes. The
magazine I got the fluting jig out of said to shape a section of hack
saw blade to the flute and scrape the charred wood out.


Well, I tried that and it worked decently where the burn marks were in
the middle of a run, but at the cupped beginning and ends, it was
horrible. I scraped and scraped and got nowhere. I eventually wound up
putting a 1/4" sanding disc from my dremel kit into my drill and
carefully sanding them until the charred wood was sanded away.


Now I know the best way to take care of this is to not let it happen
in the first place, but is there a better way to sand those areas? I
thought about taking the router to it and just barely tapping the
bottom, but I didn't want to risk messing up the whole thing in an
attempt to take care of a little charred wood.


Thanks,
Nathan


When I make fluted columns or pilasters I make the material at least
six inches longer than the finished length so that I can trim off the
entry and exit scars.

If I have to take out chatter or a burn mark I plane a block to the
thickness that matches the diameter of the flute and use it as a
sanding block.

I find that the sticky back paper that comes in rolls works best for
this.

I own a Fein but find the hand method to be superior.

Regards, Tom.

Thos. J. Watson - Cabinetmakerhttp://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet


If I'd been the one calling the shots, the flutes would have been the
length of the boards, but SWMBO wanted them to stop about 6" from each
end of the board. The starting and stopping points are where I'm
having the most difficulty.

Thanks for that tip, though. I'll keep it in mind next time I do
something like this. I tried using a dowel, but it was too fat with
the paper on, and at 11pm, I just wanted to see some progress. :-)

-Nathan