I was contacted by two friends who had the job of
replacing a rather grand entrance to a handful of homes
close by to the "Pilgrims way" in Dorking, Surrey. .
Their problem was that while they could manage most of the
joinery they could not replicate the finials atop the 8x
pillars.
General description
The original posts were made of oak and so I used the
good parts of the existing posts to make the finials.
The timber was cut to size and the bottom routed. Two
jigs were designed and made to be mounted on the cross slide
of the lathe.
A fly cutter set between centres was used to cut the
bottom section of the finials (8 finials x 4 = 32 faces).
The second jig was installed, the radius of the fly
cutter extended and the upper part of the
finials were machined.
Click each photo for a larger image
Photo 1 above left: Machining the finials on the
lathe! Note for those so inclined..... The MYFORD
lathe (A Super 7 in this case) is the metal turning
lathe of choice for model engineers and small prototype
workshops in the UK. English, beautifully made, it is
normally used for precision engineering but happily
worked just as well machining these finials.
Photo 2 above center: Completed finial in position prior to painting.
They were held in place with some long hex headed screws and
polyurethane glue.
The
variations in colour are due to the oak formerly being one
of the original
gateposts -some 80- years old -and as
already mentioned, here recycled for the new generation of
gate posts!
Photo 3 above right: Completed and painted
finial.
