Question About an Edge Profile

[Hammer5573]

A friend of mine asked me to reproduce this table. The basic design is simple; however, I don’t know how to reproduce the profile along to top edge. Has anybody seen this before..?

[Chet]

My first guess is that you would be hand carving it, but I would think that it could also be programed in to a CNC if you have access to one.

[JohnG]

Some woodworking supply places sell strips of molding, you can likely find something close to that if you don’t want to carve it yourself. 

[wtnhighlander]

That looks like it was machine cut, probably on a production machine designed to make the moldings that John mentioned. I can't think of a simple way to do it with typical hobby shop machines. Hand-carved would be my suggestions, aside from molding.

[Hammer5573]

Thanks guys. I'm afraid my hand carving skills are non-existent.

[drzaius]

Some of those manufactured strips are actually pressed more than cut. They are made of a fairly soft wood, which runs through a machine with a wheel that embosses the shape into the wood strip. There are may different types available. I bet that's what was used on that table.

[Dave H]

It seems to me I saw a video of a guy making a similar profile on the edge of something ( my old tired brain can't think what where or who was doing this operation )but after laying out the pattern on the piece he used a V carving chisel to cut the grooves of the rope detail the used an appropriate gouge to form the twisted rope strands. 

[wtnhighlander]

Make dowels of matching material. Cut a boatload of them with consistent angles on the end. Route a groove in the tabke top, pour in some epoxy, and embed the dowel segments. Poor man's rope carving.

[Coop]

On 3/29/2022 at 7:36 PM, wtnhighlander said:

Make dowels of matching material. Cut a boatload of them with consistent angles on the end. Route a groove in the tabke top, pour in some epoxy, and embed the dowel segments. Poor man's rope carving.

I like your way of thinking. Or cut the dowels in half, length ways, make the groove shallower and glue them into place. 

[Mark J]

Back in time, I think these were made by cutting a spiral groove in a spindle. The spindle was then cut lengthwise.   

Now if BillyJack had his router thingy done you could "outsource" the work.  

Actually something like that old Craftsman router crafter is how you'd do it today, unless you had 4 axis CNC.

[Tom King]

Google   "rope molding"   and you should be able to find a fairly close match.