How to Make Routed Moldings Using the Dremel Tool

Sorry about my absence, friends. It’s been an incredibly busy summer and start of school. Plus, I’ve had a bout of writer’s block! The full-scale projects for my daughters are coming along nicely, though. The deck is nearing completion at my one daughter's house as is the bathroom/walk-in closet at the other daughter's home. So, now I can begin to think small again...

Today I'm going to discuss how to use the Dremel router table. I use my Dremel tool and various router bits to make an endless array of moldings for my miniatures, including baseboards. One of the frustrations that I have encountered when running long, thin pieces of wood across the router is that sometimes I press down too hard or too lightly as the wood goes over and past the router blade. As a result, I can get cupping or little dips or waves in what should be one continuous indentation the length of the wood strip.

Through trial and error, I have developed the following approach to help reduce this problem. Here are the steps I take to get better routing performance:

Step 1: Take a piece of wood that is at least 1/8" thicker than the piece of wood you plan to route. It doesn't need to be particularly wide. As you can see by my example, it can be a little over an inch wide and about four to six inches in length. I prefer to cut this piece of wood at a slight angle, as shown in the picture at left. This will become your "hold-down" piece that will help you keep a more even pressure on the routed board as it goes past the router bit.

Step 2: After you have cut your hold-down piece, lower your blade until it is at the same height or slightly lower than the thickness of the piece of wood that you will be routing (see picture at right). If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll notice that the blade is as much as 1/32" lower than the top edge of the wood strip that I will route. For this step, always make sure the blade does not extend above the piece of stripwood.

Step 3: Take your hold-down board and make a number of passes across your table saw blade so that you slowly nibble away the wood. You can see in the example at left, as the saw blade cuts through the bottom portion of the hold-down piece, it creates a shoulder on the hold-down board. Continue to cut your hold-down piece until the stripwood almost is the depth of the cuts. When you put the hold-down board on top of the stripwood, you should be able to see about 1/64" of the stripwood still protruding above the hold-down. (See picture below for example.)

Step 4: Install the router bit in your Dremel tool and adjust the height to the approximate height you want to route. (Tip: I always cut extra pieces of wood so that I can run some test cuts past the Dremel bit to make sure I have set the bit at the right height and that the adjustable guide fence is in the right position.)  I often set the blade and the fence ever so slightly less than what I ultimately will rout the wood. If I'm removing a lot of wood from the stripwood, I will cut perhaps half of the amount of wood that I plan to remove with the first pass across the router.

I do the rough cuts, running the wood past the bit a couple of times, then I sand the wood to remove burrs that pop up. See example photo below of wood with burrs on it. NOTE: If you attempt to rout too much of the wood at one time, the burrs can become large splinters, and no amount of sanding will correct for the gouge made in the wood from that large splintered spot. Take your time - make multiple passes, cutting a little at a time, and you'll be much happier with the final product!

Step 5: Take the hold-down piece of wood and set it over the piece of stripwood. Then push the stripwood against the adjustable fence and press down on top of the hold-down wood. The picture below shows how I start a piece of wood. Once the stripwood begins to engage the router bit cutting blades, I slide the hold-down to where it is centered over the cutting blade. Try to maintain consistent amount of pressure on the hold-down wood throughout the entire pass of the stripwood. When I get toward the end of the piece of wood, I often take a piece of scrap that is the same size as my stripwood and push the stripwood on through the router and past the hold-down area so that I cut the entire length of stripwood.

Step 6: Once you have run the stripwood past the router bit, adjust to the final height and depth, gently sand the stripwood with a fine sandpaper, and then do your final pass on the router. When making this final pass, you should cut only a minute amount of wood. This final pass should actually help sharpen the edges and lines of your routed wood. Also, because it is removing so little wood, there is less likelihood of your getting burrs on the edge of the wood.

As you can see above, here is an example of wood routed with a ball-shaped cutter. The piece of stripwood was not perfectly flat between the 4 3/4" and 5" mark. As a result, the cut is slightly (and I mean slightly!) less deep than the rest of the piece of wood. To help prevent this from happening, always make sure you start with a piece of wood that has a consistent width and depth to it. Sand it or run it through your table saw as needed to make sure you have a good piece of stripwood to work with. Remember, whatever your router bit shape is, the shape you cut into the wood will be the opposite. A ball-shaped cutter produces a rounded indentation in the wood (as illustrated above). A cup-shaped cutter will round off the edge of your wood.

Happy routing!

Filling Blemishes or Flaws in Your Wood

Sorry for not posting for so long. Every weekend since July 4, I have been out of town working on my daughters' home improvement projects! The deck is coming along - no more broken windows so far! And I actually fixed a crooked door frame unit on my other daughter's remodeling project; so I feel pretty happy with that accomplishment.

I just learned a new trick from Woodworker's Journal that may help you if you're working on a painted wood project where there is a wood knot or a flaw in your wood. (When you put paint over those types of blemishes, they almost always show through.) Here's the trick for filling and hiding that flaw:

1. Sprinkle baking soda on to the flawed area. Then take a putty knife and smooth the baking soda across the flawed area. You'll see the low points fill with the white baking soda.
2. Push the excess baking soda aside, leaving the white residue on your wood.
3. Next, take some cyanoacrylate (CA) glue, and drip it onto the areas that show up as white on your piece of wood. It will darken the wood, but since you're going to paint over it, don't worry about that. Let the glue cure and harden.
4. Take some fine sandpaper and smooth the area to your satisfaction. Wipe off the sanding residue. You're now ready to paint, and the blemish from the wood knot won't show through!

I'm sure you probably figured this out already, but if you intend to do a natural wood look, with stain and varnish, this is NOT a viable solution!

Free Online Design Software

Tonight, I began to experiment with some new, three-dimensional software from Google called Sketch-Up. It's available FREE from Google. Working with this software is reminiscent of the first time I started to do something in PowerPoint.

I felt lost and a bit overwhelmed, but excited at the same time. It's just amazing what you can draw using this software - if you know what you're doing. You can "put a hole" through a solid object in no time at all. Create a square, click on the pull out icon, and suddenly you have a pillar or a box - whichever you need!

I hope to become proficient at using it, because it allows the user to see every angle, every side of a project - even the bottom of the object! What an interesting tool for drawing up dollhouse plans or for designing mini furniture! I hope I will someday say I feel as competent in using it as I do with using PowerPoint! That only comes with practice and experience, though. So, back to the (online) drawing board!  See ya later!

The Deck - Part Deux (Or Is it Doh!?)

I was hoping you all would get a laugh out of my goofy demolition story. The saga of the deck just continues. Here is part two of "the project."

So, my daughter and I went to City hall and applied for the building permit. The chief inspector was there. He shook our hands. Took a very long look at each of us, and repeated our names a couple of times - as if preparing himself to be able to recognize our obituaries in the newspaper after we dug the postholes. He almost had a look on his face of "You poor fools. You have no idea what's in store for you!" But he kept his comment to himself.

Once I picked up the auger, I realized that in spite of her can do/never say die attitude, there was no way my tiny little daughter and I were going to be able to handle that auger. So, I prepped the holes - dug all six of them about 18 inches to 2 feet deep. All my son-in-law and I had to do was to plop the auger in the hole and dig down another 18 to 24 inches. Piece of cake! Right?!?

...or not. We got the auger started and it dug like crazy. It pulled itself into the earth like there was no tomorrow. Then we tried to lift it out. Uh, I said LIFT. Um, no go. I said, LIFT!!! Nothing happened. The auger had dug itself into the earth, and it seemed like there was little or no chance of our freeing it from its self-dug grave. But the devilish thing cost me $90 to rent, and I knew I had to get it back to the rental store. So, my son-in-law got out a tiny plastic trowel, and we took turns reaching into the hole and digging out what seemed like tiny spoonfuls of dirt. We eventually got down to the auger blade, and once we did, it was somewhat easier to pull it out of the hole. When we got it fully extracted, with its extension still on it, I realized that the handlebars were nearly up to my armpits.

By this point, both my son-in-law and I were tired, but we rested up and got ready to take a stab at digging posthole #2. Then the digger wouldn't start. We pulled. We adjusted the choke. We pulled and pulled again. Nada! Zip. Not even a burp out of the stupid machine. By this point, my arms were already aching and my son-in-laws back was, too. We agreed we'll try a smaller machine and dig down from there to the official 42" frost level. So, tomorrow is another day. Maybe we'll get this deck built. Miniatures are looking better and better every moment as we go further into the holes!!!
:o)
Geo.

Why I Like Working in Miniature So Much

Fair warning... this is not your usual blog from me...

I am reminded today WHY I like working in miniature so much. I'm about to build a deck with my daughter at her house.

Yesterday, I tore down the old back porch from her house. The wood was quite weathered, and many of the screws were hard to remove. I finally took my power saw and started cutting. What I couldn't tear apart with the saw, a sledge hammer managed the rest. I was down to the last upright post, which was hanging on by a few strands of wood. So, I took my sledge hammer and gave it a whack! That did it! The 8 foot tall 4x4 careened over to its side -- right into my daughter's 3' x7' plate glass window! They tell me it will cost a little over $400 to fix it....

Next, I called the rental supply to line up a power post-hole digger (an auger). The guy at the rental place said, "It works best with these power augers for the two people running it to be the same size." (I'm 6'4". My daughter is 5'2".) "Otherwise," he said, "the shorter person really takes the brunt of the lifting and running of the digger." My daughter is all of about 110 lbs. I'm a string-bean, too. The auger weighs 80 lbs. This could be a very interesting day.

So, here's my list of why I like building miniatures as opposed to full-size stuff...as if I really need to tell you, dear readers!

• No building permits required. 
• No heavy lifting (unless you have to move a dollhouse...)
• No power drills to maintain and charge.
• No blisters.
• No heavy-duty sweating. 
• No mud on your shoes after building a mini deck.
• No sunburn or mosquito bites (unless you really want to work on your mini on your patio or deck). 
• The framing boards on a dollhouse deck weigh less than an ounce for each 12' length.
• No back-ache (unless I bend over my minis at my workbench for extended hours at a time).
• I would also include "no building inspectors", but I have to admit that if I build a mini, I usually want to show it off to others, and every time I do that, there are the critics and critical eyed people who give me their two cents worth about what is right or not right with my project!

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!