When I was contemplating my curves and complaining about my coping saw, Marco suggested that I could easily make a curve by first making a series of cuts, and then cutting the waste away with a chisel.
I had learned that technique at Homestead Heritage (Waco, TX) but hadn’t yet had enough confidence to try it. It seemed too easy. But doing the curves for the supporting piece, I decided to give it a go. So here is the piece after I’ve made my cuts:
And here it is after my chiseling:
I pretty much just chiseled until the kerfs were barely noticeable any more, and then I took out my trusty spokeshave and smoothed it out. Outside of really needing to watch the grain flow, this was a pretty simple technique!






3 comments
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March 26, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Gye Greene
Clever technique! I’ll file that one away…
–GG
March 22, 2010 at 5:39 am
Marco Principio
Haha…little did I know when I wrote that comment (a year ago!) that you would actually take me up on the suggestion. Well done man, the stool looks great, and you’ve got what I’m sure will be a family heirloom. Sorry it took me so long to finally get back and read this, but I’ve been busy busy busy, so I’m going back and reading all the old posts. Thanks for the shout out!
March 22, 2010 at 9:53 am
Eric
Hey, that little trick made its way into Woodworking Magazine and I got a free year’s subscription out of it! So thanks to you and Homestead Heritage!
I’ll always do curves that way again (but not on end grain, I found that out!).