This painters easel is a reasonable project for a moderately skilled woodworker.
The first thing which is essential, as with any but the very simplest projects, is to draw the thing out full size. In this case only the front frame of the folding, tripod, bit needs to be drawn out and you can get away with only drawing half of it.
The top of the front frame is 375mm long and the other measurements are on the drawing,, the actual length of the pieces will be found once you make the full size drawing.
The material is softwood planed to finish 21mm by 85mm. These sizes are not critical but don't be tempted to reduce them too much or the final project will look spindly.
The legs can be left parallel, tapered as in the right hand leg in the drawing or just tapered at the end like the left one. I made mortise and tennon joints at A.B.and C but just plain screwed and glued lap joints will work fine if you want to save the work of cutting the joints.
I don't advise using half lap joints as that would weaken the frame too much. However you could use part lap where you only cut the pieces into each other a few millimetres maybe 4 or 5 each side and then screw and glue.
I used a piece of nice yacht rope for the connection of the back leg and in my case I fixed it in a "Jamming cleat" so it can be adjusted easily.
The parallel pieces that carry the supports for the canvasses are made from softwood 60mm by 45mm with a rebate of 14mm square along the back inner edge.
They are set 80mm apart with pieces of the 21mm by 85mm from the tripod glued and screwed top and bottom. Take care to get them nice and parralell possibly by using a spacer. The assembly is then screwed and glued to the hinged piece on top of the tripod. You may need to trim away the top edge of the front legs slightly but this is intentional. Fix the hinged piece to the tripod before fixing the canvass holder as you can centre it up more reliably.
The canvass clamping pieces have a step in them to enable them to hold boards and canvasses properly. They are held in position by a bolt and wingnut and have a piece of 12mm ply fixed behind them to guide them in the gap between the uprights. The bolts are countersunk into a piece of 12mm ply which runs in the rebates in the upright pieces. You dont need to do them up very tightly. I have left out the bottom canvass holder in the front elevation for clarity.
If you need further information don't hesitate to email me and I will amend the instructions if nessesary.
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front legs Back leg top rails hinged piece bottom rail Canvas holder top and bottom Bottom clamp top clamp Brush tray Front of tray Top Slider Bottom slider |
2 off 1 off 2 off 1 off 1 off 2 off 2 off 1off as 1off 1off 1off 1off 1off |
21mm 21mm 21mm 21mm 21mm 45mm 21mm 30mm 30mm 12mm ply 12mm 12mm ply 12mm ply |
85mm 85mm 85mm 85mm 85mm 60mm 85 80mm 80mm 120mm 15mm 120mm 200mm |
1000mm 1150mm 350mm 350mm 700mm 1560mm 200mm 350mm 220mm 350mm 350mm_ 80mm 80mm |
To adjust the angle of the clamping piece I have used a casement stay ( for holding windows open ) on the bottom rail and it seems to work OK.
You will need 2 pairs of 75mm butts and some screws.
You can resess the butts in if you feel you need to but I just screwed mine on as positioning accuracy isn't too critical.