More Details on Making Your Cabriole Legs

The old saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, in still pictures, here are the steps for creating the cabriole leg. I promise, this is the last that I'll write on this, unless someone presses me for more details!

Step one: Cut your wood to a length that is slightly longer than the cabriole leg. (See photo at lef.) As you can see, there is a little white space above and below the table leg  drawing.

Step two: Cut the leg blanks. I placed the piece of wood on its side against the saw blade and then pushed the fence up against the block of wood. This way, I know I'll be cutting a block of wood that is as wide as it is deep. The length, of course, will be as long as the table leg blank.

You can see from this angle how I cut the blanks for the leg pieces. The cabriole leg I designed here is less that 3/4" wide. So I am able to cut all four table legs from a single piece of 1 x 4 wood.

Step 3: Cut out the paper drawing of the cabriole leg. Fold the paper along the dotted line (see previous blog for photos of the cabriole leg drawings). Use any kind of craft glue or double-stick tape to apply the drawing to the sides of the table leg blank.

 In this photograph you can see that I glued the paper tightly to the blank. I did not leave any gaps between the fold and the wood. (If there are any gaps, the cutting process will not be accurate.)

Step 4: Begin cutting the leg. In this illustration, you can see how I use a lighted, artist's magnifying glass with my table jigsaw. This makes it much easier for me to look at the piece and see exactly where I'm cutting.

I began to saw the cabriole leg by cutting through the bottom of the blank, and continued up along one side of the leg. I make sure to stay on the outside edge of the black line.

When I got to the top of the leg, I continued to cut a little above the leg, then made a gentle curve over to the other side of the leg, and then cut down along the back side of the cabriole leg. I continued to cut all the way along that side until I cut through the bottom edge of the blank.

As you can see, when I finished this cut, the "leg" is loose within the blank. It could actually fall out, and it could wiggle as I cut the other side.

Step 5: Put clear tape around the blank piece to prevent the leg from moving. This will help you to make a more accurate cut as turn the leg a quarter turn and make the same series of cuts on side two of the blank.

As you get to the end of the cut, be sure to hold down the piece of wood so that the wood doesn't rattle as you make the final cutting strokes on the piece. (Note my finger at the top of the table leg in the photo at left - the saw blade is at the bottom of this picture.)

Step 6: If you have a table saw, I recommend cutting the bottom and top of the leg using this saw so that you get a precise, right-angle cut. If you don't have a table saw, take a try square, mark all the way across the piece of wood and slice the bottom and top edges  of your table leg. 

Step 7: Remove the waste from your table leg. You will have nine pieces of wood. Only one - the one in middle - is useable. The rest become scrapwood, unfortunately.

At this point, you will have a roughly cut table leg. You'll need to sand it and perhaps carve it. I usually round the edge of the outside curved portion of the leg. I also use my Dremel tool to round the underside (back) of the leg. I try to leave the sides of the leg fairly "sharp." I will sand them to remove the raw cut marks, but generally, I prefer not to round their edges as much as the front and back. Find some examples of real cabriole legs and study them to see how the woodworker finished those pieces. That will give you a better sense of how to finish the cabriole legs.

I hope this has been helpful for you. Have fun with your cutting! 

Written Instructions for Making a Cabriole Leg

I did not realize how much my international readers might rely on the Google translation capability to read this blog. Nor did I realize the disadvantage they might experience when I posted my video about how to make cabriole legs. So, today's blog will be written instructions for how to create cabriole legs for your miniatures.

 You can cut cabriole legs with a table bench jigsaw, a band saw or a hand coping saw. I would not try to cut them using a hand-held power jigsaw, because the pieces of wood you will work with are so small, it would be very difficult to control the cutting process.  The table jigsaw can handle up to about an inch thick piece of wood (at the most). A band saw might handle a slightly thicker piece of wood; however, the overall width and depth of cabriole legs rarely exceeds one inch in a miniature.

I have made cabriole legs out of pine, bass, cherry and walnut wood. I have not tried other exotic woods. I would not recommend using especially hard woods - they might look great when finished, but cutting exceptionally hard woods may take its toll on your saw blade or your patience!

The first step in the process is to draw the shape of your cabriole leg or find one on the Internet or in a book featuring furniture with cabriole legs. For your convenience, I've posted a picture with this blog showing a table leg (2.7" tall - or about 32" tall) and a chair leg (1.3" or about 16" tall) that you can use.

The next step is to  print out a paper copy of the  leg design. Your paper copy must have both the left and right view of the leg in a perfectly vertical position. (My pictures above provides this.) Try to make sure that you leave a little white space - approximately 1/8" or more between the widest point of both legs (which the illustration above also has). Draw a vertical line between the two legs. You will fold your paper copy along this vertical line. (The above picture has a line centered between the two halves of the cabriole legs.)

Cut your pieces of wood so that they are the same width and depth. Next, make sure the length (height) of this piece of wood is about 1/2" longer than the cabriole leg. The wood grain should be in the long direction of the piece of wood.

Use double-stick tape to secure the paper copy of the leg to your wood. I buy this kind of tape at my local business office supply store. You can sometimes get it in large rolls that are about 3/4" wide or in smaller rolls that are about 1/2" wide.  Either width works just fine.

Put the tape on the back side of the paper. For the ease of fastening the paper to your piece of wood, don't put any tape along the edge where you have folded the paper. Make sure your tape extends slightly beyond the leg image on all sides. Once you've added the tape to the paper, then carefully fasten the picture to your piece of wood. The fold should touch one angle of the wood blank all the way down so that there is no gap anywhere between the paper and the wood.

You are now ready to cut the first side of the leg. Start at the top or the bottom of the long portion of wood to begin your cut. Be consistent in how you cut the piece - make your blade cut precisely through the lines or precisely on the outside edge of the line. Try not to go back and forth between cutting on the line or outside of the line - cutting that way will result in a disappointing cabriole leg. Cut all the way past the the bottom of the leg by about 1/8 to 1/4", then curve around  and cut the other side of the leg. Cut all the way back up to the top of the piece of wood and out the end near where you started your cut. You will now have two pieces of wood. Feel free to take the piece out and look at it, then insert it back where you took it out. Take some clear tape and wrap it around the pieces to hold the loose piece of wood in place within the block of wood.

Now turn the piece of wood to the side that has not been cut and repeat this process. When finished making the second cut, tape the piece back together once more. Now that you have the blank cut out, you can cut the top and bottom of the leg. If you have a table saw, I would recommend using that saw to cut a precise, right angle across the top and the bottom of the cabriole leg. That way, you'll be certain that you have a precise, 90 degree cut on the leg. If you don't have a table saw, then I'd recommend cutting the leg with a hobbyist's miter saw. If you prefer to make the cut with your table saw, take a try square, mark a line across the top and the bottom of the leg, and cut very carefully so that you end up with a squared off top and bottom.

You are then ready to peel away the tape you have placed around the pieces of the leg. You will have nine different pieces of varying shapes. Only one - the one in the center of the pieces - will be the cabriole leg. All the other pieces, though interesting, are scrap.

Sand the extended edge of the cabriole leg to round it and shape it to your preferences. Repeat the process until you have the number of cabriole legs you need for your piece of furniture. Good luck! Send me pictures if you have a completed piece. I'd love to see what you make!

The Vending Machine Is Finished

You saw the interim steps for the Coca-Cola vending machine, and here is the finished item. I used computer-printed decals to create the grill on the side of the machine and for producing the signage on the sides and top of the machine. The hardest parts of this project were to get a smooth finish on the paint and to get a good match between the red of the decal and the vending machine. I couldn't print the white "ice cold" text onto a clear decal; so I had to print on a decal material with a base color of white and print the red ink on top of it. The silver bottle opener was part of a decorative, silver bead that I cut in half and ground the back away so that it would lie at an angle when glued to the side of the cooler.

The Pack Rat in Me Wins - Again!

For those of you who have seen my blog post showing my tiny workshop, it's cluttered with all sorts of pieces of wood that I have not tossed. Even though they're not very big, and some people might think they're useless, I keep thinking, "That's a good piece of [insert kind of wood here]. I could probably use that sometime..." It's the pack rat in me that drives me to keep it!

For those of you reading this blog who don't live in North America, the pack rat is a real live rodent that is notorious for collecting "stuff." They especially like shiny objects. People who never throw "stuff" away are also called pack rats.

Well, today, I couldn't find my calipers (still can't) and so I cleaned up my workshop. I had a small box filled with little pieces of wood - 1" x 1" x 3/4" - very small pieces. I finally decided today, "OK, I'm not going to need those blocks of wood anymore. Time to pitch those!" A half hour later, I was out in my garage digging them back out of the trash can. (Fortunately, I hadn't tossed anything else into the can this week!)

Those tiny blocks of wood are perfect for holding my pieces of wood up off the table so that the painted edges don't stick to the workbench. I put a couple of pieces of double-stick tape on the blocks and set my wood on top of it. Voila!  The perfect tool for painting. So, now I have to figure out where to store these little pieces of wood... I'll give a couple of them to each of the mini club members so they can do the same thing when they paint their Coke vending machines!

How to Paint Your Miniature

Actually, I need to provide a disclaimer here...this may not be the best "how to" you've ever read!

At left is the start of a mid-20th Century Coca-Cola vending machine model I'm making for the barbershop. I had carefully cut out my wood and glued it together to the precise measurements, sanded it to make the nice rounded corners, and sprayed it with several coats of BIN primer. I used wet-dry 600 sandpaper, dampened it, and smoothed each layer of the primer. After the second coat, I began to sand it with two levels of grit - the 600 to remove any big junk and then 1500 wet/dry to smooth it even further. (I dipped the paper into a bowl of water and sanded in a circular motion, taking care NOT to scrub too hard along the edges.)  And my model was beginning to look pretty good!

I realized that when I started to hand paint the red latex paint , I needed some way to hold the miniature, since I needed to paint ALL of the sides, and if I held it any places where I'd already painted, I be leaving huge fingerprints in my paint. So, I drilled a small hole in the bottom, and inserted a long screw into it, which serves as a "handle" for me to use so that I can paint. The handle worked great for drying, too. I took a pair of vice grips and snapped them down on the screw, and had a very sturdy way of holding the vending machine right where I needed it. So far, so good!

Then I started adding layers of the red, latex paint that I had specially mixed for me at the hardware store. I got four coats on the piece, and things were looking pretty good. Maybe I hurried it too much, and didn't wait long enough for the paint to dry. Maybe I pressed too hard with my sandpaper. Maybe I needed to change the water to remove any impurities from previous coats I'd sanded.  I'm not sure what caused the sanding to go wrong. At any rate, as I was carefully sanding with my 1500 wet/dry sandpaper, large chunks of the red paint peeled away all the way back down to the primer coat! YIKES! (Actually, I said something a little stronger than that...) So, tomorrow, I will start over - maybe with a different kind of paint...

If you want to know what it's supposed to look like when it's done, here's a link to a picture of it on the Web: http://www.4americanrecreation.com/images/ice-coke-machine.jpg. I will show you a picture of the vending machine once it's done.

Stained Glass for the Barbershop Door

Here's my front door for the barbershop. I know it's not perfect - my lines are a little wavy - especially with the bottom part of the glass. I got in a hurry and didn't push the leading material just a little southward on the right-hand side. I may end up having to redo that part.

That's the fun part about using this stained glass material on glass. You can scrape it off and do it again. Or, you can create various stained glass windows using a template and do the "glass" on a piece of special plastic. If you like what you've created, you can trim it to size and insert it into your window.

I tried doing it the old-fashioned way - placing my leading on the glass and then adding the color stains. The advantage of doing it that way is that I know my colors will truly bleed to the edges of the window frame. Had I done it on the plastic sheet and THEN cut it out for the window, there's the chance that a tiny sliver of light would show around the edge, and that would not be realistic looking, either.

For those of you who are curious about what I used and where I got the stained glass "stuff", I purchased it at the Michaels store here in town. I'm sure you can purchase it online, too. I bought a kit, since I knew I didn't need a lot of the staining gel. It's interesting stuff to use. The "leading" is available either in a tube or in sheets that you can cut. I chose the sheets, since I was certain that I could not pour out a line that was about 1/32" wide. One of the leading sheets comes pre-marked at 1/16" widths. For miniatures, though, that would be far too wide! Even 1/32" is a bit bulky, but that's about the best I could do with trimming this stuff on my first go-round. When you add the colors, they look quite opaque. It's deceptive, because you think, "Oh dear! This won't look good!" Then it dries into much brighter, slightly translucent, jewel tones. Now I'm wondering why I never did more of this with my dollhouses! It was a lot of fun and easy to do.

If you're wondering, the I left the center of the window as plain glass. They make an etched glass material that I could have used, but I want the "Open" sign to be hanging in the glass from the back side. It's a little more realistic to have that be clear glass for the barbershop, too, I think.

And if you're wondering what the brand is, it's Gallery Glass by Plaid. ;o)

Some Things You Should NOT Buy in Advance

I finally had a project I wanted to do that would use my glass staining kit. I purchased it a while ago. Um, maybe it was more than a while... In fact,  I think I bought the kit about 20 years ago... ulp!

It was really cool, though, with nice little bottles in a variety of colors and "liquid" lead that I could add to a needle-pointed dispenser and create stained glass windows. When I dug these items out of a drawer over the weekend, , the cute little bottles of stained glass colors were almost completely dried up. I had discovered the "lead" tube had dried up several years ago and had tossed it previously. Sigh. I know it's the cheapskate in me, but I just HATE to waste money on tools and/or products that I never use!

So, take a lesson from my experience - if it's a chemical, wait until you NEED it. Then buy it! ...even if that stain, paint or other chemical product looks really cool at the time you're in the store, you can probably buy it later on-line. I bought the stained glass kit when we went crazy at a miniature store years ago, and in retrospect, it obviously was not money well spent.

I also discovered that the manufacturer of the glass stains is no longer in business. Fortunately, though, another company has stepped into that void, and there IS a product for making stained glass windows. I'll share my finished window with you in my next post. I'm tickled with how it is turning out! It's going to look great in the front door of the barbershop!