Desk Moldings I
The decorative elements of the desk, in fact the base frame of the piece, were all about deeply incised moldings on the edges of every planar element. I would estimate that the construction phase of the base was about 90% for making the moldings, about 10% for making the joinery.
Once the individual elements were cut and cleaned up, I set to work on making the moldings on their edges. Given the nature of the moldings this was a multi-step process, using some tools that I bought and many more that I made or modified. I began with those surfaces that were the most amenable to trying and perfecting the technique, namely the feet. They were manageable in size and complexity, and completely accessible since I was working them prior to assembly.
In essence these were not carved moldings early as much as they were “scratched” moldings, in essence created with a series of scratch stocks. So, my first step was to fabricate a slew of scratch stock cutters to configure the primary shape of the three half-round runs on the edge of the feet. I ground a center flute cutter from a blank from my inventory from the English profile tool to establish the valleys, and a Lie-Nielsen iron needed only a bit of tuning to work just fine to perfect the convex rounds.
The Preston 1396 is a wonderful tool! Very comfortable to hold and offers fine adjustment; one of my favourite Prestons to use.
At one point, I picked up a set of replacement cutter blanks for it from the UK, though I can’t remember exactly where. It might have been oldtoolstore.co.uk, which is run by Ray Iles. They don’t currently have any listed (they have some listed for the 1388, but that’s the quirk router, not the string router), but if you email Ray I’m sure they can make some up for you.
If I’m making a blank for one of my Preston tools that doesn’t have the vernier adjuster, I’ll just use spring steel or an old saw blade. But when it has the vernier adjuster, I find that I prefer a very precisely machined blank. More precise than what I can do, anyway. And I certainly don’t mind supporting Ray Iles’ business. He makes great tools.
Anyway… just nice to see an old Preston show up in blog posts every now and again.
When I bought mine at a PATINA shindig a few years ago it came with a bundle of cutter blanks. Primo!