To attend worship at Kadavul Hindu Temple make a reservation here
FRONT GROUNDS ARE OPEN DAILY FROM 9AM to 12PM WITHOUT A RESERVATION

Hand Made Molding for our Kitchen

Sadhaka Adinatha is doing a bit of renovation in the monastery kitchen. In the process he needed 10 linear feet of crown molding to match the original. That brown piece is a sample from the construction done in 1929, presumably. Acharya Kumarswami volunteered to create the needed pieces.

The wood choice was Ylang-Ylang, an Asian variety of super straight grain. It’s also quite soft, so it makes for easy planing. This lumber is part of a fairly large quantity milled from an 80-foot tall tree that we had to take down 3 years ago, as it was too close to Kadavul Temple, fearing it might cause serious damage if it every fell, such as in a big storm. Two chamfers made with the table saw, and the rebate here with a japanese rebate plane. All set for curves.

Acharya cuts a groove to guide the hollowing plane for the cove. The groove also serves as a depth marker. This is a 50-year-old Japanese plane that he restored along with four others of different sizes to make a set.

Then the groove is broadened out with hollowing planes, starting with a narrow one. This plane is part of a set of 18 hollows and rounds made in England in the 1870s.

Then the convex part, with rounding planes. What fun!

The hollow is complete.

Here a Japanese plane enters to help with the rounding.

Suddenly a host of plane are all getting into the project, even the miniature planes.

The profile is complete, now requiring just a bit of sanding.

Finally we cut the 35 and 55 degree angles on the back of the molding, to match the original. That’s Sadhaka Adinatha there in the background admiring the end product, ready for painting and installation in the kitchen!


3 Responses to “Hand Made Molding for our Kitchen”

  1. Ushadevi says:

    Wow, kewl. I love how all of the planes jumped in to help with the project! If I were a plane I would have wanted to jump in too! Like a bunch of kids at the beach jumping in the ocean!

  2. amma debora says:

    Great job! A challenge in carpentry – and a beautiful accomplishment!

  3. eleni says:

    Beautifully done. Norm Abram couldn’t have done it any better—and I think he would have approved of using the antique planes.

Leave a Comment

Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.

Subscribe to RSS Feed