# How to make these curved cuts with hand tools?



## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

Okay.

The picture shows it all.










This piece is from the turn of the 20th century, and I'm providence says it was hand-made. Without delving totally into the likelihood of each piece, including cast iron, was made by hand and not recycled, how would the inside curves (coves?) been cut using hand tools only?

It's a question I've had for a while.

Even the Studley chest has inside coves.

Any ideas?


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## BrandonW (Apr 27, 2010)

Maybe a wooden plane made for the specific application?


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## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

It'd have no sole! 

The straight sides with coves, yeah, But the others?


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## Moai (Feb 9, 2009)

It takes 30 min to carve them out, roughfully; and then with scraper card with that profile mounted in a wooden gig, that would finish the job.


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## DocBailey (Dec 9, 2011)

An interesting question, Smitty.
The first (and only) thing that comes to mind is a convex spokeshave.


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

I'm with Francisco on this one.


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## GMatheson (Apr 9, 2010)

You could use one of these as long as all you curves were always the same radius









But carve and scrape works too


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## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

Wow, curve and scrape sure seems hard. Maybe the invention of routers *was* a good thing…


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

I you have a selection of gouges, it's not too hard.

If you really want to be intimidated, consider a pie crust
table.


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## paratrooper34 (Apr 27, 2010)

Smitty, I would use a round molding plane in conjunction with a fillester plane for the straight edges which would be pretty quick and then use an appropriately sized gouge to make the curved sides join the straight sides. Yeah, it would take longer with those tools compared to a router, but for those of us without a router, that would be the way to go.


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## Cosmicsniper (Oct 2, 2009)

Francisco +1


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## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

Francisco for the Win! Now to make the scraper profile…


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## bandit571 (Jan 20, 2011)

Use a round bottomed Squirrel tail plane.


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

Use a router Smitty with a bearing guided cove bit. You've already got a mountain of galoot points in the bank as far as we're concerned. Power tools are better for some things. Just sayin'.


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## donwilwol (May 16, 2011)

I'm with Andy. Give the rest of us a chance!


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

Make the scraper Smitty, then rout it. Lay a gouge of the appropriate size on the bench alongside your work and take a photo of yourself pretending to scrape it. In this way, the flow of galootness will be preserved in your blog without it taking very long to do. I won't tell anyone if you don't. )


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## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)




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## JGM0658 (Aug 16, 2011)

I saw a video were they cut kerfs with a hand saw then they went at it with a chisel and then finish with a rasp and sanding. It took the guy a few minutes to do a big section. He was using japanese chisels so he would use the back of the chisels to follow the curve and pry the waste of the piece.


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## JGM0658 (Aug 16, 2011)

Now to make the scraper profile…

I just this that for a few doors I had to clean the moldings. I have a profile copy gauge, I used that, transfer the shape to a piece of metal used for spreading caulk and then used a file to grind off the profile.


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## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

Ahhh… The shaper does it on the scale I'm looking for!










Need to try it by hand, too, but this is good…


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## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

Thank you for the detail, Jorge. I will refer to it when the time comes!


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## kokomoron (Feb 25, 2013)

I would guess a custom made scratch stock


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

If you're talking about using hand tools only you could carve them reasonably quickly with a carving gouge.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com


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