I am several years overdue in making a mantel clock for my son. I dug out the instructions from our friends at HB Clock Plans / Hermle, blew the dust off and thought about how to do this. I already have the right mechanical movement from CMT Hermle, a 320 with a moon dial. It's been sitting in the shed for about five years!
The size of the mouldings for this design had always held me back, they are so big you almost need a spindle moulder (which I don't have of course). I had also just packed away my router table, and my 1/2" Triton router is playing up also. I don't like routers, so noisy and everything in the workshop gets covered in dust. Also, power routers tend to burn blackwood (which I am using), but no chance of doing this with a hand plane!
In keeping with my Zen-motivated move toward the Dark Side, I decided I would do all the mouldings with my Stanley 55. I have been meaning to get to know this plane better, so I sharpened the appropriate blades and got to it. Firstly, I decided on the profiles for the top and bottom, the one used in the instructions is just plain ugly (IMHO) and also difficult to make with the 55. So the base will be two stacked Roman ogees (I've used this design before and quite like it) and the top will be a combined bead and cove profile. The photos below show the progress I made with these profiles, it is great fun to use the 55, and I managed to teach myself (well, "stumble across" might be more accurate) a few techniques as well. The key of course is razor sharp blades, I have acquired enough diamond plates, files and ceramic stones to be able to do this now. The old blades that came with the combination plane were, of course, in a bad state, but they came up nicely enough.
I ploughed some trenches for the splines that the instructions recommend as well, the plane made very short work of this with a 3/16" blade.
So mouldings done, now to make the mitre joints and assemble the base and the top. I don't know how long it will take to complete, I'm in no rush!
Cheers
Swifty