Some Practice With Moulding Profiles - Part 1

Yeah, that's right.  I spelled it "Moulding" instead of "Molding".  Just can't help myself there.

Now that I have a decent sticking board, I wanted to practice with some moulding profiles.

New sticking board - 36" capacity

I have been reading Matt Bickford's blog posts from 2011 and 2012, where he wrote extensively about using H&R planes to make mouldings.  I also just picked up his DVD, "Moldings In Practice".  (He wrote a book with the same title, available at LAP and it covers the same info.)  Matt is very methodical about making mouldings with H&R planes and he explains things very clearly.

Started by sketching some 1 1/2" x 1" sections on poster board
(and I also squared up some 1 1/2" x 1" x 15" long poplar)

Drew in some reference lines and sketched a profile

I don't have a good feel for how big a fillet should be relative to the ovolo, so I just winged it.

A good question - what is the proper order for cutting your rabbets

Started with the uppermost wide, shallow rabbet.
Placed edge of a shoulder plane in the gauge line to get it started.

First rabbet done

Adding the gauge lines for the second rabbet

Those of you familiar with Matt Bickford's method of making mouldings might notice my mistake here.  I'll go into detail in a moment.

Made the second rabbet

And the third rabbet is complete

Bickford says that a chamfer guides a hollow plane and the two edges of a rabbet guide a round plane.  In the next picture you can see I'm using two edges of a rabbet to guide the hollow.  I should have made a chamfer, which would remove more material and make it easier for the hollow.  It's important to remove as much material as you can with a rabbet plane, which is far easier to sharpen than a hollow or round plane.

Rounding the profile using a hollow

The result on one end

And on the end where the cut begins, with poster board profile held to the end

The profile above is a quarter circle, with a little extra flat near the bottom fillet.  The next profile will be a simple cove with two fillets.

Marked out the profile

Marked rabbets for the two fillets

Added rabbet location for the cove and numbered the rabbets

After cutting the rabbets

Penciled in the extents of the cove on the flats

Using the two edges of the rabbet to guide the round plane.
Note how each edge gives a shaving, resulting in double shavings.
When you get a single full width shaving, you know you're just about done

And here's the result

I'll stop this post here, but I did two more advanced profiles that I'll post on later.  I'm fairly stoked about the result.

Two nice profiles so far

The H&R planes that I made a few years ago leave a bit to be desired, but all in all they performed OK.  They don't make the same "schnick" sound that Bickford's do; it's more of a scraping sound.  The rabbeting was a bit slow, and I have work to do to get the plane set just right, but the rabbets came out good, too.

I'm off for some R&R - catch you all in a couple weeks.