Mission style furniture - rounding over board edges

[Bryan Schwerer]

This is my first project that I would consider nice furniture. I'm working on a mission style bench, with lots of slats and rails. I've hand planed the boards with a smoother prior to finishing and the edges on the boards are really sharp and just seem to need a touch of rounding over or else it's going to get dinged and splintered and start catching. It's not addressed in the plans, is there some convention to this? I've never taken the opportunity to look over a nice piece of Stickley furniture (note to self) to see how the sharp the edges are. Would a 1/16" round over be in order, or maybe just a pass or 2 with sand paper on the edge?

[glenn bradley]

There are reasons to ease edges beyond the design requirements. Avoiding pooling finish at the edges of flat surfaces is one. In places where a "sharp" defined edge is used, I use a piece of 400 grit and my fingers to give the edge a light swipe or two. I will use a router bit when I want a clearly stated roundover. I have a range of sizes stepped in 16ths that I have gathered over time. The appropriate radii is driven by the scale of the stock for me. I would Google a lot of mission style stuff and see if you can catch a good example that is similar to your piece. I would suspect that a light roundover with a sanding block or a shave would do you.

[Kent A Bathurst]

There are reasons to ease edges beyond the design requirements. Avoiding pooling finish at the edges of flat surfaces is one. In places where a "sharp" defined edge is used, I use a piece of 400 grit and my fingers to give the edge a light swipe or two. I will use a router bit when I want a clearly stated roundover. I have a range of sizes stepped in 16ths that I have gathered over time. The appropriate radii is driven by the scale of the stock for me. I would Google a lot of mission style stuff and see if you can catch a good example that is similar to your piece. I would suspect that a light roundover with a sanding block or a shave would do you.

Bingo.

I do a lot of Mission stuff out of QSWO. Here's my approach - which is nothing more than one guy's opinion [meaning, it wasn't on the back of the tablets Moses had]:

1. In general, the bigger the component, the bigger the corner/edge treatment.

2. For table legs, I use my wheeled marking gauge to scribe lines down the corners, and then hand-plane a chamfer donw to the scribe lines. Smaller items [like an end table] get smaller chamfers, and bigger items [3" x 3" dining table legs] get bigger chamfers. Proportion is the point, I guess. But - they are all in the range of 3/32" - 3/16" [the gauge's setting]. Then light sanding to just very slightly break that 45* edge. A chamfer router bit will do the same thing, if you'd prefer. I just happen to like the look of the chamfered edge on legs - used to round them over, but that doesn't "look" right to me on the legs. Whatever.

3. For large table tops, like a dining room table top, I'll round over the edges by 3/16" with the router. On smaller table tops, 1/8" with the router. The point of using the router for these is that they are very visible, and I want more consistency in the edge than I can get by hand sanding [or, actually, more consistent than I am willing to work that hard for].

4. On pretty much all other components, like stretchers, rails, drawer faces, and the ubiquitous slats, it is 120g or 150g sandpaper. On smaller stuff like the slats, just in my fingers. On other stuff, with a cork sanding block.

Glenn is dead-nuts on target re: break the edge for finishing purposes. The dye, stain, shellac, varnish, etc. cannot get to that sharp edge. Surface tension, and all that other stuff they were teaching in HS science while I wasn't paying attention.

[Bryan Schwerer]

Thanks, I knew there was some term for the softening the edges, but I couldn't remember the word for it. I googled "eased egdes" and got a few helpful hits.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Oh - BTW - "really sharp" edges...no kidding. I often find the odd splotch of blood on a piece, and have to start checking fingers to see where the band-aid needs to go.................

[gary Zimmel]

I too build a lot of mission style pieces. I like the nice crisp lines of the style so leave the edges quite crisp.. But thats just me.
A few swipes with some 400 paper is all I do.
And I too have left a little red on some of the pieces before those edges are knocked down...

[Frank Drew]

Easing the edges, breaking the edges, however you call it, is, IMO, essential for furniture work for all the reasons mentioned: finishing, fragility, plus a sharp edge simply feels nasty, unfriendly.

[Chad Bender]

I've used all of the previously mentioned techniques to ease edges. My current favourite is a little "cornering tool" I picked up from lee valley for ~$15. It gives more consistent edges than sandpaper, without the fuss of setting up a roundover bit in the router, and takes just a few seconds per edge. The only caveat is to watch the grain (a particular problem on QSWO). If you're not careful, you'll end up gouging into the piece and causing a big chunk to chip out. On better behaved woods (e.g. straight cherry) it works very well.