Walnut Crown Molding advice

I have a garage full of walnut and am going to be making some crown molding for my kitchen and family room. I have a nice router table and thought I would rip the walnut into 3-4" boards, then resaw to 1/2" thickness before profiling them on the router. I also have a DW705 to do the corner work. I have researched crown molding router bits and have settled on a few bits my wife likes.

Coupla questions. Is 1/2" sufficient or do I need thicker on the boards? Anyone have any experience they can share, particularly with the router bits (dos, don'ts, etc)?

Thanks,

Todd

Reply to
Todd the wood junkie
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I'd regard this as a Crime Against Timber, to use a router to make mouldings in walnut.

Walnut is nice stuff and deserves to be made into an attractive shape. That means a large scale moulding, with bigger curves on it than a mere router cutter gives you. Find a huge router cutter (expensive and tricky to swing), a spindle moulder or (my own favourite) an old wooden moulding plane.

Reply to
dingbat

To answer your question, I'd stay with 1/2" - possibly 5/8 There really is not any benefit to going thicker and added thickness will, add weight, make it less flexible, etc, etc.

I use a shaper for large profiles such as Crown. If you have time, please let us know how things turn out with the Router. Will you be making the seating angle cuts on the Table Saw?

In any event - Good Luck!

Reply to
Joe Bemier

If you plan to paint it - use a different wood and send the walnut to me. However, walnut machines very nice. I would/did cut the profile on the router table before cutting it into thinner pieces. It makes it much easier to control. I also made the mounding up in three separate pieces and glued them together after machining.

Dave

Reply to
Teamcasa

drawing in ABPW

Dave

Reply to
Teamcasa

Thanks for the help Dave. No way will I paint this. FYI, I have two large piles of walnut. One 250bf pile is all heartwood, air-dried, 14" crotch boards. No worries, that will be used for furniture (dining room table, english bar, etc). The other 250bf pile is heart/sap boards from the same tree, that I will use a part of for the moulding. I will take the less desireable stuff, and dye the sap to match the heart, so this project will be mostly about finishing.

Dave, I like your idea to machine before resawing, much safer. Do you have any pictures of your work you could share?

Reply to
Todd the wood junkie

"Todd the wood junkie"

Sure,

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Reply to
Teamcasa

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