What is this design feature called?

[Mike Keers]

Hi,
First post here. I hope this is in the correct category. I have been commissioned to build a bed to match an existing bedroom set. The set is from Canada, and is more or less a Queen Anne or Chippendale sort of design.

The corners of the case pieces have this detail, and the client wants me to duplicate it on the bedposts. I don't know what it's called. I also have never done this particular feature before, and while I have some ideas on how to construct a jig to do the chamfer on the bandsaw and also the three-bead detail in the chamfer (with a molding head on the table saw), I hesitate to reinvent the wheel. Can anyone offer any suggestions for how this might be accomplished? Thanx!

I hope the attachment is there!
mike keers

[Lee Koepke]

Hi,
First post here. I hope this is in the correct category. I have been commissioned to build a bed to match an existing bedroom set. The set is from Canada, and is more or less a Queen Anne or Chippendale sort of design.

The corners of the case pieces have this detail, and the client wants me to duplicate it on the bedposts. I don't know what it's called. I also have never done this particular feature before, and while I have some ideas on how to construct a jig to do the chamfer on the bandsaw and also the three-bead detail in the chamfer (with a molding head on the table saw), I hesitate to reinvent the wheel. Can anyone offer any suggestions for how this might be accomplished? Thanx!

I hope the attachment is there!
mike keers

I believe the term is "lambs tongue". I have never (successfully) done one, especially that size.

The examples I have seen have been completed by hand w/ a chisel and lots of patience. The ones I have tried were very small, and maybe the larger ones would be easier ???

[Jim Becker]

Welcome to SMC! It's a simple stopped chamfer that has some additional details added (scratched) in. The termination has been eased and stretched out, however.

A lamb's tongue starts with the stopped chamfer, but has a more elaborate ending. Here's a pic I found via a search of what a lambs's tongue would look like terminating a stopped chamfer.

[Jason Roehl]

I don't know if there is a specific name for it, but I bet if you called it a "fluted chamfer", people would more or less know what you are describing.

[Mike Keers]

Thanks for the welcome and thoughts everyone. Jason, that would be my term, I just wasn't sure if it had a real name. I've seen lamb's tongues, but to my thinking it referred to the little detail at each end where it stops, not the actual chamfer. But of course you need the chamfer!

This chamfer just peters out, almost certainly machine made. I suppose they do it on a shaper (which I don't have), it was production furniture, altho solid cherry and quality stuff.

Lee, this is a rather large feature, the post in that pic is over 2" square and the chamfer is probably well over an inch wide--perhaps 1-1/4" across its flat. I imagine the beading part could be done by hand with some sort of molding plane or as Jim says, 'scratched in'.

My semi-plan was to rough out the chamfer on the band saw, and then make a jig to hold the post at a 45 degree angle, and use the molding head on my table saw with a 1" wide three bead cutter. I haven't gone beyond the thought experiment phase, but I envisioned stops, positioning the fixture and post, and possibly raising the cutter a pre-determined height to add the fluting to the chamfer, running the fixture a fixed distance to the next stop and then lowering the cutter.

Jee, now that I've written all that out, it might be just as fast and easy to make some sort of three-bead scratch scraper and do it by hand!

[Jim Becker]

I do suspect big shaper for that particular stopped chamfer, Mike, but you can still cut it with a router and extend/soften the ends with hand tools. Or build a jig to hold the work appropriately and use the band saw to cut it as you suggest.