Duplicating a vintage table leg

[dtorney]

Is there an easy way to obtain the shape of the leg, made on a lathe? I traced its outline.
The tracing will yield formulas, which I can use to generate the surface.

I expect I'll cut the top half of the leg, turn it over and cut the bottom, but I'm new to
CNC routing.

[IslaWW]

If you can cut the leg on a rotary axis you will usually get a cleaner cut than 2 sided, albeit not as fast as on a lathe.

Here is an example of a "'lathe type" profile cut on a rotary axis:

[dtorney]

Thanks Wizard!

[dtorney]

I measured around 10 diameters of the leg and used a spline to make a facsimile of the leg profile. Apart from the octagonal segment, it's a surface of revolution. If there's an easier way to get a mock-up of a piece, I'd like to know about it.

[martin54]

I don't have a rotary axis so not sure how it all works but if you have traced the outline of the leg then you should be able to produce a vector for it if you haven't done that already. If you have a vector then maybe this tutorial will help, don't know for sure as I have no rotary experience

http://support.vectric.com/tips-and-tri ... ideo_id=22

Or you could just turn another one on the lathe using a duplicator

[dtorney]

Thanks, Martin.

[rscrawford]

Do you have a regular lathe? You could probably make a template and turn it on the lathe quicker than you could model the leg. The nice thing about a lathe is you can get a perfect surface with very little effort with sanding. Cutting the leg on the flat, you will have A LOT of finishing work to do and will never match the quality of a turned leg. At the very least I would mount the finished leg on a lathe to sand it.

[dealguy11]

Agree that you'll get a nicer result on a lathe. Having said that, another option to get the profile is to get one of those molding finger gauges (the ones with lots of wire or plastic probes) and capture the profile with that. Take a picture of the guage on a flat surface, import it into VCarve Pro, and draw the profile using the picture as a guide. If the leg is too long for the gauge, then do it in sections and then stitch them together, making sure the camera is approximately the same distance from the gauge for each section. Once you've drawn the vectors in VCarve Pro, adjust the size so it matches the leg. I've done this with moldings I needed to copy and ended up with a very nice result.

Or, if you can get far enough away from the leg to reduce the impact of perspective, take a picture of the leg directly using a a good camera with high resolution and a zoom lens to bring it closer. Import this picture into VCarve Pro and draw the vectors using it as a guide. Again, resize and you're good to go.

[kyeakel]

I've used 3 similar methods to copy turned legs. 1) I place a removed leg on my epson multifunction copier and scan it onto a flash drive, sometimes takes multiple scans and then you have to assemble the pieces. 2) Use a bright light to cast a shadow on a piece of white cardboard, trace the outline by hand. Use the scanner to get a digital copy. 3) use my cell phone to take a picture against a complimentary background, import the photo into Aspire and rescale to proper size.

I also measure each feature with calipers and recreate the spindle by using the tools in Aspire.

I recently made 16 spindles to match the ones on my 1885 Victorian house, these are 2.25" x 2.25" x 24". I then created 2 newel posts that are 5" x 5" x 46". Now I have to make the matching rails to connect it all together.

Kipp