Walnut Crown Molding advice

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.

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!

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

drawing in ABPW

Dave

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?

"Todd the wood junkie"

Sure,

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