TJ Cornish
Member
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2010
- Messages
- 99
I have been assigned a project to create a set of doors representing different countries around the world. The doors need to be interesting looking, and hopefully as representative of a part of the world as a door can be. This project was a great excuse to pick up an OF1400 router and try a few new things. Due to the timing of where I’m at and the deadline of this contest, I’ll only be showing work on the 1 ½ doors I’ve completed to this point, but I think there’s still some interesting stuff so far.
The first door is supposed to be quasi-Middle Eastern. The sample image I was given is of a door that’s a partial circle at the top, with a fairly conventional rectangular bottom. Since this is set design rather than furniture construction, the whole build is out of MDF and Masonite – material that lends itself very well to being shaped, and since these will be painted, the lack of grain isn’t an issue.
I debated on how to build the door – whether to try to make the circle separate from the straight part, but decided to do it all in one shot using a home made trammel and the OF 1400 router.
[attachimg=1]
If I win this contest, I may spring for the MFS template system, but the budget didn’t allow for that, so it was homemade. I made the trammel by using a 1” Forstner drill bit in my drill press, and using the 24mm copy ring in the router. To make up the slop between the 24mm copy ring and the 25.4mm hole in the board, I wrapped some blue masking tape around the copy ring. My “pin” at the other end of the trammel was a drywall screw.
This configuration was actually my second attempt at the trammel. My first attempt was using a set of standard guide bushings, but the nut of the guide bushing protruded up into the router and didn’t give me enough depth before hitting the collet. The Festool copy ring extends only downward, so I gained some height. This was still barely enough – the longest ¼” spiral bit available is a 2 ½” overall-length bit, which was pretty tight trying to go through the ¾” trammel board and the ¾” workpiece.
[attachimg=2]
Once the trammel was made, routing the circle was trivial. I laid out “stop” lines on the workpiece, and away I went. Dust collection was compromised because I had to have the router so low. I ended up making several passes for each cut – the first couple passes were partial depth and dust collection worked great. The full-depth cut had virtually no dust collection, because the collet was almost touching the copy ring.
[attachimg=3]
[attachimg=4]
Once I had the rings cut, I needed to cut the straight lines. I elected to use the router for this again, since I would have the same size kerf as the circular part. I scribed a guide line from the edge of the piece eyeballing where the guide rail would go relative to the end of the circular cut, then adjusted the bars on the router so the router bit was in the hole of the circular cut and the rail was lined up with the mark.
[attachimg=5]
On one cut, I forgot to re-tighten the bars, and ended up with a mis cut. Thankfully I’m building set pieces that will be painted, so a little putty and a little time with the Rotex solved the issue.
I used a grooving bit and the guide rails to add some detail to the inner part of the door.
[attachimg=12]
[attachimg=6]
I rounded over the MDF edges, stapled the Masonite backing to the MDF edges, then used a flush trim bit to cut it out.
[attachimg=8]
And the finished door:
[attachimg=9]
Door number 2 is a cathedral-style door with an arch on top. It took me a couple hours of playing to figure out how to make the arch. The solution was once again a trammel, but this time with a radius equal to the entire width of the board, in my case, 49”. Bisect the end of the board to find the midpoint, place one end of the trammel arm at this point, then align the other end at the edge of the board. Since it’s hard to put a screw right at the edge of the board, I used a line 1” in from the edge and accepted an approximate curve. Repeat this on the other side of the board for the other half of the arch.
[attachimg=7]
I repeated this process for the inside of the arch, this time using the interior width as the radius length.
I wanted the arch to be thicker than ¾” so I can add some edge profiling, so I moved the first arch down on my board and attached with some brad nails. I used the jigsaw to roughly cut the next piece out, then the router with a flush trim bit to clean it up.
[attachimg=10]
[attachimg=11]
This is as far as I currently am on the project. I plan to attach the arch to the vertical portion of the door frame with dominoes, which will add some strength, considering that the backing will again be ¼” Masonite.
[attachimg=13]
I bought a gigantic 3/4" coving bit to profile the frame. Haven't had a chance to try it yet. I'll probably also round over the top of the cove - I'd like to use as much of the 1 1/2" thickness I have.
This project has been really fun so far. I’ve learned some new math, and have done almost the entire project with the router so far. If time allows, I'll add to the thread showing how the rest of the project goes.
The first door is supposed to be quasi-Middle Eastern. The sample image I was given is of a door that’s a partial circle at the top, with a fairly conventional rectangular bottom. Since this is set design rather than furniture construction, the whole build is out of MDF and Masonite – material that lends itself very well to being shaped, and since these will be painted, the lack of grain isn’t an issue.
I debated on how to build the door – whether to try to make the circle separate from the straight part, but decided to do it all in one shot using a home made trammel and the OF 1400 router.
[attachimg=1]
If I win this contest, I may spring for the MFS template system, but the budget didn’t allow for that, so it was homemade. I made the trammel by using a 1” Forstner drill bit in my drill press, and using the 24mm copy ring in the router. To make up the slop between the 24mm copy ring and the 25.4mm hole in the board, I wrapped some blue masking tape around the copy ring. My “pin” at the other end of the trammel was a drywall screw.
This configuration was actually my second attempt at the trammel. My first attempt was using a set of standard guide bushings, but the nut of the guide bushing protruded up into the router and didn’t give me enough depth before hitting the collet. The Festool copy ring extends only downward, so I gained some height. This was still barely enough – the longest ¼” spiral bit available is a 2 ½” overall-length bit, which was pretty tight trying to go through the ¾” trammel board and the ¾” workpiece.
[attachimg=2]
Once the trammel was made, routing the circle was trivial. I laid out “stop” lines on the workpiece, and away I went. Dust collection was compromised because I had to have the router so low. I ended up making several passes for each cut – the first couple passes were partial depth and dust collection worked great. The full-depth cut had virtually no dust collection, because the collet was almost touching the copy ring.
[attachimg=3]
[attachimg=4]
Once I had the rings cut, I needed to cut the straight lines. I elected to use the router for this again, since I would have the same size kerf as the circular part. I scribed a guide line from the edge of the piece eyeballing where the guide rail would go relative to the end of the circular cut, then adjusted the bars on the router so the router bit was in the hole of the circular cut and the rail was lined up with the mark.
[attachimg=5]
On one cut, I forgot to re-tighten the bars, and ended up with a mis cut. Thankfully I’m building set pieces that will be painted, so a little putty and a little time with the Rotex solved the issue.
I used a grooving bit and the guide rails to add some detail to the inner part of the door.
[attachimg=12]
[attachimg=6]
I rounded over the MDF edges, stapled the Masonite backing to the MDF edges, then used a flush trim bit to cut it out.
[attachimg=8]
And the finished door:
[attachimg=9]
Door number 2 is a cathedral-style door with an arch on top. It took me a couple hours of playing to figure out how to make the arch. The solution was once again a trammel, but this time with a radius equal to the entire width of the board, in my case, 49”. Bisect the end of the board to find the midpoint, place one end of the trammel arm at this point, then align the other end at the edge of the board. Since it’s hard to put a screw right at the edge of the board, I used a line 1” in from the edge and accepted an approximate curve. Repeat this on the other side of the board for the other half of the arch.
[attachimg=7]
I repeated this process for the inside of the arch, this time using the interior width as the radius length.
I wanted the arch to be thicker than ¾” so I can add some edge profiling, so I moved the first arch down on my board and attached with some brad nails. I used the jigsaw to roughly cut the next piece out, then the router with a flush trim bit to clean it up.
[attachimg=10]
[attachimg=11]
This is as far as I currently am on the project. I plan to attach the arch to the vertical portion of the door frame with dominoes, which will add some strength, considering that the backing will again be ¼” Masonite.
[attachimg=13]
I bought a gigantic 3/4" coving bit to profile the frame. Haven't had a chance to try it yet. I'll probably also round over the top of the cove - I'd like to use as much of the 1 1/2" thickness I have.
This project has been really fun so far. I’ve learned some new math, and have done almost the entire project with the router so far. If time allows, I'll add to the thread showing how the rest of the project goes.
