So lets get to work!

First you have to have your pictures in your computer. You can download then from your camera or scan them with a scanner or whatever method you want.

I like to resize the pictures in advance. The maximum width picture that you can display in a blog is 640. I don’t know what the limit for the height is. Anyway I use a free little program from Microsoft to resize my pictures. You can find it HERE. All the instructions on how to use it are there.

Then you need a place online to store your pictures. I use Photobucket, it’s FREE. You can find it HERE.

Once you sign up, you can start uploading your pictures. The following are a series of pictures showing how I upload a picture.

First select “Albums and upload” from the drop down menu.
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Here’s another way to change the size of your pictures. Just do it before you select your files.
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Then select “Choose Files”
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Find the file you want to upload on your computer, hightlight it and select “open”.

You can select as many files as you would like.
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Then you will wait while it uploads.
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Once it’s done you can add a title and so on if you like. Then select “return to album”
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And there’s the picture I uploaded.
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The picture itself will have it’s own pull down menu. Go to “Direct Link” and highlight the link and copy it. (right click and select “copy”).

This is the link that you will paste into your blog.

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Then go to Lumberjocks and start your blog like you normally would.

Paste your picture link (right click, paste) into your blog.

To get your picture to display you MUST put an exclamation point at the beginning and end of your link with no spaces like the picture below.

I like to add a couple of periods to space my pictures and text. If I don’t everything looks too crowded.

Then click “Preview” to see if it’s correct.

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If you still need to edit it some more select “Close Preview” and make your edits.

Post it when you are done.
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If I have forgotten any thing, let me know and I will add it to this blog.

You might want to add this blog to your favorites so that you can point other people to it when they ask how you do it.

I hope this answers your questions

Not a lot of commentary here since all I did was to make and attach the pivot parts.

The rails under the table have slots where it touches the table top to allow for expansion . I used a solid brass 5/16” rod for the actual pivot. The pivot position worked out perfectly. When the top is “folded up” it doesn’t touch the column.

Right now it’s 33 inches tall. That might end up being a little tall, but it gives me the option to shorten it later.

The next time you see it it will have it’s finish and posted as a project.

Now comes the part I hate. Sanding and finishing! Oh, well.
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Below you can see how much I shortened the column by.
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Here are the two “collars” I made to fit around the narrow part of the column. They fit nice and snug to it should end up stronger than before.
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Next will be the ribs and pivoting part to mount the top on.

I chamfered the top edges of the “struts” and radiused the bottom of the curved edge.
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The finials are cut from drawer pulls I found at Lowes and drilled and tapped for mounting.
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I beaded the posts on all sides except where the struts attach and used a classical plunge bitin the center along the length. Again this is in the medieval style.
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Here you can see the stepped radius on the bottom of the struts and a large classical plunge bit down the center of the column in between the legs.
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I know already that I am going to hate sanding this thing. Next is the embellishment for the column. I figured that that is going to take a while since I have 6 sides to do and fit something around that narrowed spot in the middle.

I am kind of thinking of making it in 1 piece and then breaking it in 2 to mount it. The mating edges should match perfectly.

I’m open to suggestions.

Back to work.

I like to incorporate architecture into some of my woodwork and this is an example. These legs are taken from the 12th – 13th century flying buttresses used to support the walls on old Gothic cathedrals.

Here is an example from Westminster Abbey in England.
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I figured if they were good enough to hold up tons of stone, they would work here.

Here is my interpretation in wood.
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It may look a little bulky and crude now but won’t (hopefully) when I get done with them. I plan a lot of embellishments and other things. I also made the column long so that I can cut it to the correct length once I determine the proper geometry for the top. I don’t want it to hit anything on the legs do I.

I want things to look heavy but not too heavy. I am trying for a balance here. Gothic/Medieval things were a balance
of lightness and bulk/strength. We shall see how it works out.
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Here are a couple pictures showing the joinery. Nice big mortise and tenons instead of the traditional dovetailed slots.
I think that they will be more than strong enough.
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Back to work!

This is the first part where you will see that I am not making a traditional Pie Crust Table. Like I said in my previous blogs this will be different.

I guess you can say that I am going for a Jacobean/Medieval look. Google some images on Jacobean to see what I mean. The Jacobean style was big into spirals.
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This started out at a big piece of 16/4 mahogany. After machining it I almost ended up with the same amount of chips as I did for the top.

The base is a 6 sided polygon for the 3 legs. The narrow cut you see in the middle was required due to the router bit I used to cut the spiral. I will be adding some wood there for the transition. I’m still thinking about what will look good.

Until next time.

The first method was route channels leaving some uncut material to support the router and then use my flush cut saw to remove them. Then I thought of all the dust that would make so I tried to make a bunch of saw cuts and beat them out with a hammer. This worked very well at limiting the amount of chips.
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But when I used the router I was scared to death of slipping near the and ruining the entire thing.
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Then I tried to use a stationary router in moving jig. This is the jig that I used to flatten my work bench.
But once again I was afraid when I got to the ends because I was cutting blind.
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This is the method I ended up using. A stationary jig with moving router. It was very effective and relatively fast.

I made it with hardwood sides the keep it from drooping in the middle and melamine to reduce friction. Another thing I did for safety was to install stops. One on each end to limit the travel of the router and in the lower picture to keep the jig in position.

I just lined it up in the center and made a cut and then rotated the jig around the center point looking through the slot to position it. I also used an old candle to wax the bottom and edges or the router to make it slide very easily.
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The slot was about 2” wide allowing me to make two passes, with the 1 1/2” bottoming bit I used, before re-positioning the jig. One half a rotation of the jig and I was done with the first pass. I took about 1/4” of material off at a time.
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It ended up taking me about 1/2 an hour of cutting to complete it.
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After a little sanding with 40 grit
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And Last but not least 1/2 of the pile of wood removed with router. That’s an 18” scale.
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Next time I will start with the stand. Like I said in the beginning it will be something different.

Now the easy part. Just cutting with my templates.

Here is the inside radius. Got some burn marks from where I ground the bearing off. I’ll just need to clean it up later.
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The classical plunge bit.
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The step cut.
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And finally the outside radius.
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Well, this completes the outside edge of the top, finally! It’s downhill from here. (Unless I screw something up)
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Next I will show you how I go about cutting out all that material from the center.

I needed to make three paper patterns. One for each of the cuts I will be making. Here are two of them taped to the template before cutting.
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These were made from the corners of MDF like the one for the outside. I had to leave more material on the outside edge so that when I applied pressure with the router if didn’t flex away. They don’t look pretty but they turned out pretty good where they counted.

These gave me a chance to use my scroll saw which sits neglected in my shop most of the time. Then some sanding and filing and the edges were perfect (as far as I could make them anyway).
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Then since I wouldn’t be able to see my lines in the top, once I starting removing material, to line things up I drilled a hole to allow me to see through. Then just extended my line into the hole. This is one of the reasons I am going to save cutting the outside radius until last. Otherwise it would remove my lines from the outside edge.
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Here you can see part of the rough cut just to make clearance for the other bits. I just used the flat router bit with one of the wider templates. Now here I don’t want to remove too much material from the surface because I still want to use it to support the router base when I route the outside radius. That will be the last thing I do before removing all the material from the inside.
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Here’s one of my 2 rarely used plunge routers, set up with my router guide insert and flat bit. You can also see why I left so much material on the templates. I have to have room for the clamp.
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Now because of the diameter of the 1/4” radiusing bit I couldn’t use a router guide insert like a did above, so I had to do something different.

I had to add a bearing to the bit. Luckily the bearing from the other bit I am going to use would work. See the larger diameter shank on the blue bit? Well, that was because the inside diameter of the bearing was 5/16”. So to get it to work on my 1/4” shank red bit I had to make a sleeve to the shank to increase the diameter. Now I just happen to have a metal cutting lathe so I just made one.
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The next time you see this I should have the entire inside edge done and show you how I remove the rest of the material from the inside.