Cutting the tapered octagons on the posts

Tonight I got around to cutting the long tapered octagons on the posts as well as the octagons on the bottom of the posts. My wife was having a bunch of ladies over from church so I got banished to the garage (guess they didn't want me listening in on the gossip :-) - I'm kidding). I had Johannes (my oldest son) give me a hand primarily to help support the jig and posts at various points in the process.

On the right is the jig I used to lower the 4 sided tapered post down onto the router bit as it progressed along the taper. The jig is described in the article on making the bed. I added the toggle clamps to ensure that the post remained tight to the jig during the cut. Reducing the chance of things lifting up. Overall the jig worked well, though I did see some inconsistencies in the octogon along parts of the taper on some posts. So either I let the jig ride up a bit or the original tapers weren't perfect. It looks like I can easily repair it with the hand plane. Setting up the first cut took a little while but the remaining posts were cut with a single pass over the bit. I think that was probably my mistake. I should have passed the taper over the bit a second time just to eliminate any areas where the jig might have crept up slightly on the first pass.

We also cut the octagons on the lower end of the posts. This was much simpler, the hardest part was keeping the post flat on the table but with Johannes holding the end of the post it went pretty smoothly. Probably too smoothly as I got a bit careless on the last cut of the last post and overshot the stopping point by about a 1/4". Hopefully it won't be too obvious and if its on the inside of a post where it won't show no one will be none the wiser.

The finished posts look really nice and even without having cut the lamb's tongue profile where the ocatagonal taper meets the squared block they already look quite nice. It will probably take me a while to hand carve all the lamb's tongues but perhaps I can cut a few here and there after work - sort of a brain break before I hit the computer after supper for a few more hours of overtime.

Tomorrow is the Woodworking Show in Fredericksburg VA. Looks like it will be just Johannes and myself. Mattheus is sick and Chandra gets bored too easily at the show. Course that means there is no one to stop me from spending more money on new toys :-). I'll have to be good though, especially if I want to get the new tablesaw in another month or so.