Candle Stand
(prototype)
This a theoretical project primarily intended to help me learn the use of the ShopBot indexer. I find that having projects better aids learning than unfocused experimentation. The entire piece is made out of scrap pine, spruce, and lauan. There are some obvious mistakes and other imperfections, but since it was just a practice piece, I decided to forge ahead and finish it anyway.
An alternate view of the finished product.

Detail of the top edge.

Detail of the top edge. Note that 3D carving was required on both surfaces of the top. (The piece was flipped during cutting. To keep it aligned, I created a cutting file that drilled mounting holes hidden below the inlay.)
The center-post, prior to assembly.
Finish cutting for the turned portions was done with a 1/8" ball-nose bit.
Center-post detail, top.

Center-post detail, bottom.

The top-most ring in this view was "free-handed" with the ShopBot in keyboard mode. I had to do this because the turning required some 700,000 degrees of rotation and the control software has an upper limit of around 530,000. I tried splitting the turning into two files, but things didn't go so well and corrections were necessary.

The individual parts, prior to assembly. The only woodworking that wasn't done on the ShopBot was the angled portion of the connector piece (left), which was done on a band saw, and the taper of the three legs (right) which was done on a belt sander. They taper from 3/4" down to 5/8" at the tips.

Detail showing the connector piece, glued and screwed to the bottom of the table.

The off-cut from one end, showing how the original pieces were laminated together before turing.

 

All photos and text are courtesy of John D. Ervin