I've got a project to repair an item for an uncle to, essentially,
replace a missing panel in a barrel. As a warm up for that I decided to
make a pentagon shaped structure.

The angles came out close, but it does not fit well and I'm trying to
look for clues.

The test material was a strip of plywood about 30 inches long and 40
inches wide.

I set the angle of the table to be 36 deg off of center and ran both
side of the strip through. I then ripped the strip into similar length
pieces.

Using my digital angle gauge, the angle of the beveled edges ranges from
53.6 to 54.4 degrees. When I put pieces together, there's always one
piece that does not fit.

The third attempt worked better than the second, with some slight
tweaking of the angles. (The first was a complete mathematical
mistake.) Are there any suggestions for improving this process?

The barrel pieces will be done in mahogany when I feel confident in
being able to do this work without ruining the wood. Although I'll
probably move up to poplar, or something similar, as a final dry run.

Scott Zrubek wrote:
I've got a project to repair an item for an uncle to, essentially,
replace a missing panel in a barrel. As a warm up for that I decided to
make a pentagon shaped structure.

The angles came out close, but it does not fit well and I'm trying to
look for clues.

The test material was a strip of plywood about 30 inches long and 40
inches wide.

I set the angle of the table to be 36 deg off of center and ran both
side of the strip through. I then ripped the strip into similar length
pieces.

Using my digital angle gauge, the angle of the beveled edges ranges from
53.6 to 54.4 degrees. When I put pieces together, there's always one
piece that does not fit.

The third attempt worked better than the second, with some slight
tweaking of the angles. (The first was a complete mathematical
mistake.) Are there any suggestions for improving this process?

The barrel pieces will be done in mahogany when I feel confident in
being able to do this work without ruining the wood. Although I'll
probably move up to poplar, or something similar, as a final dry run.


Don't you mean 18 degrees?

I don't know if this will help, but it's something I do when I make
stave drum shells.

Let's say I need 10 pieces for a 6 inch deep shell. I don't cut 10
pieces, 6" long, then run the bevel on each piece.
I run the bevel on a 5' long piece, then cut it into 6" pieces.

I apologize if this sounds like I'm talking down to you, but you'd be
surprised at how easy it is to not get that.

I also don't leave the final cut to the saw. I rough cut the angle and
get the final bevel on a router table or jointer. And you'd be
surprised at how much help stationary sander can be at getting that
*last* piece to fit just perfectly. But in all honesty, I've only had
to use a sander the first time.

You can cut very small pieces just for testing to see if you have the
perfect angle set on your tool.

I hope some of that might help you with your particular challenge.


--

-MIKE-

"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com

---remove "DOT" ^^^^ to reply

According to this chart with the blade set to 36 degrees you should get what you want (if you want a flat pentagon) otherwise you must take "slope" into account and adjust your bevel and tilt accordingly.

http://www.woodcraftplans.com/compound_miter.htm

Might find it interesting to see the tools used in making a barrel

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fl...rrelmaking.htm

Might want to check that blade tilt - might be about 1/2 degree off the mark.

P D Q

"Scott Zrubek" wrote in message ...
I've got a project to repair an item for an uncle to, essentially,
replace a missing panel in a barrel. As a warm up for that I decided to
make a pentagon shaped structure.

The angles came out close, but it does not fit well and I'm trying to
look for clues.

The test material was a strip of plywood about 30 inches long and 40
inches wide.

I set the angle of the table to be 36 deg off of center and ran both
side of the strip through. I then ripped the strip into similar length
pieces.

Using my digital angle gauge, the angle of the beveled edges ranges from
53.6 to 54.4 degrees. When I put pieces together, there's always one
piece that does not fit.

The third attempt worked better than the second, with some slight
tweaking of the angles. (The first was a complete mathematical
mistake.) Are there any suggestions for improving this process?

The barrel pieces will be done in mahogany when I feel confident in
being able to do this work without ruining the wood. Although I'll
probably move up to poplar, or something similar, as a final dry run.

-MIKE- wrote:
Scott Zrubek wrote:
I've got a project to repair an item for an uncle to, essentially,
replace a missing panel in a barrel. As a warm up for that I decided
to make a pentagon shaped structure.

The angles came out close, but it does not fit well and I'm trying to
look for clues.

The test material was a strip of plywood about 30 inches long and 40
inches wide.

I set the angle of the table to be 36 deg off of center and ran both
side of the strip through. I then ripped the strip into similar
length pieces.

Using my digital angle gauge, the angle of the beveled edges ranges
from 53.6 to 54.4 degrees. When I put pieces together, there's always
one piece that does not fit.

The third attempt worked better than the second, with some slight
tweaking of the angles. (The first was a complete mathematical
mistake.) Are there any suggestions for improving this process?

The barrel pieces will be done in mahogany when I feel confident in
being able to do this work without ruining the wood. Although I'll
probably move up to poplar, or something similar, as a final dry run.


Don't you mean 18 degrees?

I don't know if this will help, but it's something I do when I make
stave drum shells.

Let's say I need 10 pieces for a 6 inch deep shell. I don't cut 10
pieces, 6" long, then run the bevel on each piece.
I run the bevel on a 5' long piece, then cut it into 6" pieces.

I've never had that luxury on the drums I've made; I had precious little
material at my disposal and I had to eek out the pieces from all
different sections of a rough board in order to get enough to do a drum.
Once the rip width and blade angle on the table saw were set correctly
I've been able to rip 20 short little boards with good enough
consistency to get it wrapped into a perfect circle. Of course, it
helps that I have a very nice and accurately tuned Delta Unisaw that
could rip down the length of an RCH (if only I could figure out how to
get it to hold still while I was pushing it past the blade...)

I also don't leave the final cut to the saw. I rough cut the angle and
get the final bevel on a router table or jointer.

Sounds like a lot of trouble.

get the final bevel on a router table or jointer. And you'd be
surprised at how much help stationary sander can be at getting that
*last* piece to fit just perfectly.

Which, depending on the application, may be all you really need to do.
If you're fitting 10 pieces into a circle, is anybody really going to
notice if you make 9 consistent pieces, then custom cut the 10th to fit
the remaining opening? I wouldn't want to do that on a snare drum, but
for other applications it may not matter. However, it sounds like the
OP only has to replace one stave in an existing barrel, so I'm not sure
why there is a need for a level of accuracy that doesn't map onto the
problem at hand.

--
See Nad. See Nad go. Go Nad!
To reply, eat the taco.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/

Steve Turner wrote:
I've never had that luxury on the drums I've made; I had precious little
material at my disposal and I had to eek out the pieces from all
different sections of a rough board in order to get enough to do a drum.
Once the rip width and blade angle on the table saw were set correctly
I've been able to rip 20 short little boards with good enough
consistency to get it wrapped into a perfect circle. Of course, it
helps that I have a very nice and accurately tuned Delta Unisaw that
could rip down the length of an RCH (if only I could figure out how to
get it to hold still while I was pushing it past the blade...)

I also don't leave the final cut to the saw. I rough cut the angle
and get the final bevel on a router table or jointer.

Sounds like a lot of trouble.


I don't have a Delta Unisaw. :-)

Nor did I have the great blade I now have, last time I did a shell.



--

-MIKE-

"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com

---remove "DOT" ^^^^ to reply

In article ,
-MIKE- wrote:

Scott Zrubek wrote:
I've got a project to repair an item for an uncle to, essentially,
replace a missing panel in a barrel. As a warm up for that I decided to
make a pentagon shaped structure.

The angles came out close, but it does not fit well and I'm trying to
look for clues.

The test material was a strip of plywood about 30 inches long and 40
inches wide.

I set the angle of the table to be 36 deg off of center and ran both
side of the strip through. I then ripped the strip into similar length
pieces.

Using my digital angle gauge, the angle of the beveled edges ranges from
53.6 to 54.4 degrees. When I put pieces together, there's always one
piece that does not fit.

The third attempt worked better than the second, with some slight
tweaking of the angles. (The first was a complete mathematical
mistake.) Are there any suggestions for improving this process?

The barrel pieces will be done in mahogany when I feel confident in
being able to do this work without ruining the wood. Although I'll
probably move up to poplar, or something similar, as a final dry run.


Don't you mean 18 degrees?

I tried it with 18 degrees on the first attempt. Got me half of a
circle.


I don't know if this will help, but it's something I do when I make
stave drum shells.

Let's say I need 10 pieces for a 6 inch deep shell. I don't cut 10
pieces, 6" long, then run the bevel on each piece.
I run the bevel on a 5' long piece, then cut it into 6" pieces.

That's what I did.


I apologize if this sounds like I'm talking down to you, but you'd be
surprised at how easy it is to not get that.

I also don't leave the final cut to the saw. I rough cut the angle and
get the final bevel on a router table or jointer. And you'd be
surprised at how much help stationary sander can be at getting that
*last* piece to fit just perfectly. But in all honesty, I've only had
to use a sander the first time.


Ah. Thanks. I had not thought about that.

You can cut very small pieces just for testing to see if you have the
perfect angle set on your tool.

I hope some of that might help you with your particular challenge.

In article ,
Steve Turner wrote:

-MIKE- wrote:
Scott Zrubek wrote:
I've got a project to repair an item for an uncle to, essentially,
replace a missing panel in a barrel. As a warm up for that I decided
to make a pentagon shaped structure.



Which, depending on the application, may be all you really need to do.
If you're fitting 10 pieces into a circle, is anybody really going to
notice if you make 9 consistent pieces, then custom cut the 10th to fit
the remaining opening? I wouldn't want to do that on a snare drum, but
for other applications it may not matter. However, it sounds like the
OP only has to replace one stave in an existing barrel, so I'm not sure
why there is a need for a level of accuracy that doesn't map onto the
problem at hand.

I only have to replace one stave, but that stave will have to be
multiple pieces glued up and rounded off so I'm working on general
knowledge and then tailoring it for my task.

In article , "PDQ"
wrote:

According to this chart with the blade set to 36 degrees you should get what
you want (if you want a flat pentagon) otherwise you must take "slope" into
account and adjust your bevel and tilt accordingly.


Thanks. No slope necessary for my final task. It's a vertical barrel.
It actually the housing for a piece of navigation equipment, the name of
which escapes me at the moment, for a ship.

http://www.woodcraftplans.com/compound_miter.htm

Might find it interesting to see the tools used in making a barrel

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fl...rrelmaking.htm

Might want to check that blade tilt - might be about 1/2 degree off the mark.

I think it's actually about 0.2 degrees off the mark, but I do agree
it's off. My digital gauge does not appear to be precise enough, nor
accurate enough. I measure the angle of the blade twice and get two
different readings. I'm having to sneak up on the proper angle. So,
the next time I work on this, I'll set the Unisaw's angle for the bevel
and use a circular saw for the crosscut so I can just tweak the Unisaw
instead of having to set it up completely again.


P D Q

"Scott Zrubek" wrote in message
...
I've got a project to repair an item for an uncle to, essentially,
replace a missing panel in a barrel. As a warm up for that I decided to
make a pentagon shaped structure.

The angles came out close, but it does not fit well and I'm trying to
look for clues.

The test material was a strip of plywood about 30 inches long and 40
inches wide.

I set the angle of the table to be 36 deg off of center and ran both
side of the strip through. I then ripped the strip into similar length
pieces.

Using my digital angle gauge, the angle of the beveled edges ranges from
53.6 to 54.4 degrees. When I put pieces together, there's always one
piece that does not fit.

The third attempt worked better than the second, with some slight
tweaking of the angles. (The first was a complete mathematical
mistake.) Are there any suggestions for improving this process?

The barrel pieces will be done in mahogany when I feel confident in
being able to do this work without ruining the wood. Although I'll
probably move up to poplar, or something similar, as a final dry run.

Don't you mean 18 degrees?

I tried it with 18 degrees on the first attempt. Got me half of a
circle.


Brainfart. I had 20 on my mind.

Let us know how it goes.



--

-MIKE-

"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com

---remove "DOT" ^^^^ to reply