Victorian Newel post duplication

So a friend of mine bought an old newel post online and wanted me to duplicate the post 7x.

I started by making the shaft’s using a four-sided box technique. Then I did a tracing of the leaf pattern at the top of the post. Transfered the pattern to the new shafts and routed an 1/8th inch relief around the picture framed leaf.

Next I used a in-shave scraper to create the face shape of the leaf. Using a gun stock checkering tool, I created the veins in the leaf. As a background I used a method called, “peening”, to create texture to fill up the picture frame.

Cutting the flower stem design required making my own router jig that fit the shaft box and the router bit was a 3/8 inch fluting. To locate the button at the base of the stem, I used a 3/4 inch forstner bit. Below the button, required making another traveling jig for my model 1800 legacy ornamental mill.

This jig required four days of design and manufacture, but it did the trick. It plunges at the button hole, travels forward, sweeping a fluted radius cut, and escapes at the bottom of the root cut.

To do the tapered chamfered corners on the shaft, was done on the same legacy machine by adjusting the angle so at the deepest cut at the bottom of the chamfer measured about 3/4 inch. And escaped to nothing at about the middle of the shaft, and I finish the shape above/below the chamfer with a barley cut bit and a 3/4 inch pointed round over bit.

The square cap base, is made on a turn style and attaches to the legacy and simply chose the router bits that created the shape I wanted.

The domed cap is cut from a glued up block and is shaped with a template. The cutter is a long stemmed reed cutting router bit and follows the same template. The acorn finial is turned on the legacy by clamping it into a head stock similar to a normal lathe, but by using a router.

Still a work-in-progress.

-- Tim B. Sweely Elizabeth, Illinois, timsweely@yahoo.com -------- My potential is limited only by my emagination.