Fruits Of My Labor (A-113)

[Tony G]

Last time around we went with some curvey furniture. The jig we made back then (was really crude) used a 4" PVC pipe as the mold to form the radius. Four inch pipe has an outside diameter of 4 1/2" and we wrapped 1/2" of wood around it so we ended up with a pretty fat corner. Nice on the knees but I felt it was a bit too much for a small boat.

I liked the feel and the looks of a 2" radius bend. To get that we switched to a 3" PVC pipe which has the outside diameter of 3 1/2". Being I've dropped back on the thickness of the plywood I'm using from 1/2" to 1/4" baltic birch, we end up with the 2" radius I desired.

I still got to use the 4" PVC. I just built a little jig that allowed me to run it over the table saw and cut out 1/4th of the wall lengthwise. The black UHMW stock I had lying around just happened to be 1/4" thick same as the PVC pipe wall so it transitioned perfectly.

With the old jig the 3mm plys were allowed to run wild when I glued them up with the intention of trimming everything "square" based on the radiused corner. That ended up being a giant PIA. So this time around I added a lengthwise guide along the bottom edge and some alignment tabs on the end.