Cherry edging around curved oak table - advice needed
 

Hi folks,

I'm currently working on a small coffee table in oak. The shape of the table
can be seen in the following link:
http://whistleralley.com/reuleaux/reuleaux.htm . It's a so called Reuleaux
triangle, with quite a few interesting geometrical properties. The width of
the table is approximately 60cm (about 24 inches).

What I would like to do is to add a cherry wood edging about 1-2 cm (about
0.4-0.8 inches) thick around the table. I haven't yet decided upon how to do
this, and I would like some advice. Sawing the edges to shape from a big
enough slab of cherry wood seems like a hard way to do it, and would
generate quite a lot of waste (cherry wood costs quite a lot here in
Helsinki, Finland). If I saw a thick enough edge it's obviously quite hard
to bend, but it could perhaps be done by steaming/heating it? Should I saw
out strips thin enough that I could bend along the table (obviously these
would have to be quite thin, so I would have to saw about 3-5 strips/edge).

Maybe there are other ways of doing it as well - any advice, trick or tip
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Kaspar

Cherry edging around curved oak table - advice needed
 

"Kaspar Snord" writes:


[...]

What I would like to do is to add a cherry wood edging about 1-2 cm (about
0.4-0.8 inches) thick around the table. I haven't yet decided upon how to do
this, and I would like some advice. Sawing the edges to shape from a big
enough slab of cherry wood seems like a hard way to do it, and would
generate quite a lot of waste (cherry wood costs quite a lot here in

Ans would produce a bad grain pattern.

Helsinki, Finland). If I saw a thick enough edge it's obviously quite hard
to bend, but it could perhaps be done by steaming/heating it? Should I saw

Do that. A web search for "steam bending" will produce lots of
descriptions on how to do it; it's less difficult than you might
think. (I once built a guitar, and bending the sides was definitely
not the most complicated part).

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23