Cutting coves on a TS

[bdk5]

Last night I made my first attempt at cutting coves on the table saw. I had read about the technique, and the concept scared the bejesus out of me, but it turns out that it is much simpler--and less scary--in practice than I imagined. Frankly, I'm amazed out how easy and effective it was. The trickiest thing was keeping the wood balanced on the small remaining flat part as the rest was being cut. I was only cutting half coves, so the wood was not supported on the table on both sides. On the last pass, only about 3/4 of an inch of flat wood remained, while the remaining 2 1/4 inches was being cut. The occassional wobble caused a few nicks, but nothing that couldn't be solved with some sanding. In retrospect, I should have used workpieces twice as wide and cut a full cove, then ripped them down the middle after. Live and learn.

-Bryan

[BobSch]

In retrospect, I should have used workpieces twice as wide and cut a full cove, then ripped them down the middle after. Live and learn.

-Bryan

Good point. I'm going to have to remember that.

[pelligrini]

Wow, I couldn't imagine trying to cut them like that. I did some coves when I was duplicating these drawer pulls. http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=38123 Getting it set up and doing the cuts didn't make me feel easy at first, but once started I didn't mind.

What type of blade did you use? I wish I would have had a FTG blade when I did mine. I ended up using a dewalt 80T crosscut blade as it was practically brand new and I didn't want to try coves on my 30T WWII. I probably should have fed it really slow on the last of the many passes. Sanding out the teeth marks wasn't too bad though.

If I were to do a bunch again I'd do a jig with some featherboards pressing down.

[bdk5]

Ironically, I used a 30-tooth WWII. The only other TS blades I have are the now-dull original 40 tooth blade and a 24 tooth rip. Sanding out the tooth marks isn't terribly fun, but it's going to be a painted project, so it doesn't have to be quite perfect.

[pelligrini]

hehe, my WWII was pretty new and I didn't feel too good about running a bunch of red oak into the side of that high dollar blade.

I didn't think the sanding was all that much fun either. I probably should have spent a little more time sanding the first time. The stain popped out a bunch of marks I missed. I got 'em all out with the second sanding session though.

[jking]

I made some cove moulding several years ago with the stock blade on my BT3100. I had some minor sanding to clean it up, but, in all it worked very well. Mine was red oak which was stained.

[jabe]

Whenever you do a cove cut on the TS you'll get blade & burn marks no matter how careful or how sharp your blade. The easier way to get those blade or burn marks out is to use a hand scraper shaped to your cove's radius. That'll get most of your blade & burn marks out faster then sand.

[jking]

Whenever you do a cove cut on the TS you'll get blade & burn marks no matter how careful or how sharp your blade. The easier way to get those blade or burn marks out is to use a hand scraper shaped to your cove's radius. That'll get most of your blade & burn marks out faster then sand.

When I made my cove moulding, I had no burn marks. I took very light cuts & made a lot of passes. How clean the cut is will depend on the angle you feed the stock through the saw & your feed rate. A nice sharp, clean blade is an obvious necessity here. For a one time or infrequent cove cut, the amount of sanding I had to clean it up was minimal; not enough to justify going out & buying or making a scraper for my radius.

[Bill in Buena Park]

Wondering if using a blade with FTG instead of ATB teeth would make a difference in reducing blade marks?

[pelligrini]

I was thinking about that too, but the more I've thought about it I don't think it'll make too much of a difference. I was considering the geometry of the cut. Since the wood is being fed at an angle to the blade different parts of the teeth are doing the final cuts on the wood.

If I'm feeding the wood from the front right of the saw to the back left, part of the cove is finished on the back right of the blade and part of the cove is being finished on the front left.

It might help at the apex area of the cove, but I'm not too sure about that. I'm thinking that the feed rate has a lot to do with the marks.

[FL Buckeye]

CMT makes a cove cutting blade for the table saw but at about $150 you need to need to use it a lot.

[cabinetman]

I don't use any special jigs other than shop made straight edges or guides. A simple way to do coves is to kerf the stock ripping straight in graduating depths. The center cut would be shy of the desired depth, the first cut to the left and right would be a flip of the material to the fence, and so on. The cut depth is short of the final cove which allows for final milling. Can be cleaned out with either the blade, or with gouges/chisels and/or scrapers, like this:
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A few sites that have easy to follow methods are this one that has an enlargeable chart, and here.
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