Thursday, August 2, 2012

Corbels - The Finishing Detail


A corbel is an architectural bracket or block projecting from a wall and supporting (or appearing to support) a ceiling, beam, or shelf. (http://architecture.about.com/) 

Corbels don't have to be fancy to add the perfect finishing touch to a porch. They can even be homemade.



Take my star corbel, for example. Simple. Easy to make. And looks great, if I do say so myself!

It took some experimenting to come up with a design I liked and could do with the tools I already owned - a bandsaw and a chop saw. A scroll saw would do but might make the job a lot harder.



I used a 1 x 12 for the main part of the corbel, using the pattern I'd made to trace each one on the board. Notice how I cut in from the corner to cut out the star.




And I made a bunch of them, enough for the back side of the porch. I'll be making 58 in all. Phew!




After I screwed the piece onto a base, I used painters caulk to fill in the cut-in from corner to star. Then I painted the whole thing.




A screw on each end of the corbel and it was easily hung.




They make a nice finishing touch for the back porch, I think.


And only 42 more corbels to make!


1 comment:

  1. I LOVE corbels also. Please do consider posting detailed step-by-step instructions on how you made them. I'd love to try and make some.

    ReplyDelete

Your opinion doesn't count, but I'd like to know what it is anyway! Please leave a comment!