On 7/27/2015 10:11 PM, Leon wrote:
On 7/27/2015 8:48 PM, Greg Guarino wrote:
On 7/27/2015 5:36 PM, Leon wrote:
Clamp stiles precisely where you want them,
under the top rail. With a top bearing flush cut bit in your
router use
the clamped top rail as the guide to cut a groove on the face of the
stile.
Once you have all stiles grooved, remove and cut off the excess,
close to
the line you want to keep. Now use that edge again to guide the bit to
remove the remainder. Make several passes.

Perhaps I misunderstand, but this sounds like a recipe for a stile that
is too short; too short by the diameter of the router bit.

OK, you left out the part where I said to cut the stiles long. Cut
those to the correct length after tweaking the fit at the top rail joint.

Sounds like a good idea.

Further,
suppose I were to shift the stile 1/2" (my bit diameter) with respect to
the rail "template", it still won't trace the same curve, not quite
anyway. Now in this case it would probably work as the "curve" is
extremely close to being a straight line. But with a tighter curve, I
don't think the parts would mate properly.

Yes! you are right and I just a moment ago and addressed this. The
radius on the stile will be 35'-11.5" instead of 36'.

On my cutting boards this work great because I fill the 1/2" removed
material with 4, 1/8" thick strips.

Others have mentioned cutting a straight line and what is going to leave
you with some kind of gap. BUT John mentioned tweaking with a block
plane, so that would work too. Regardless of which method you use cut
your stiles several inches too long and after you have it good enough
cut the stiles to the correct length.


Have I misconstrued what you meant somehow?

No you understood me correctly, I made the mistake.

It had to happen sometime. Consider me the stopped clock.

I was just
remembering how I did this 7 months ago with the cutting boards.
It would still work for you but you would have to put a 1/2" filler
strip in the middle of the joint and that in this case would look wonky.

Alternatively clamp the stiles in the correct position, trace the curve
with a pencil, and use a disk sander to remove the material to the
curved line.

No disc sander here. But we are talking about less than 2 thousandths.
That shouldn't be difficult by hand. What I'm still trying to visualize
is whether or not that .0018" "rise" that represents the difference
between the curve and a straight line would be visible. Is there a rule
of thumb?

Keep in mind that your arc is probably not going to be perfect

That's something I'm reminded of all too often.

so unless
you use the exact position of placement as a reference the fit may be
inconsistent on all of the stiles.

Just something to think about and it may not fit into your plans but
build it like my cabinet doors in the link I supplied, Top rail between
stiles. Then cut another rail to put over the front of the top rail to
hide the joints. That top rail doing the hiding could be most any
thickness.

I may draw that to see if I like the look. This is all pretty far off -
time-wise - by the way. It's just a twinkle in my eye. My wife and I
were just discussing the possibility and I whipped up a sketch.