I have a project coming up where I need to make two matching tapered columns, but alas I do not have a lathe. I wanted a way to create them easily and repeatability was important – here is the jig I came up with.. A box.. On the front end I have a vertical adjustment to set the diameter at one end and a way to turn the work piece. At the other end is a sled of sorts that can be adjusted based on the length work piece needed, also with a height adjustment.
I can now take a length of wood, and cut it into an octagon on the table saw, drill center holes in each end (and a keyed hole in one end). I put that wood in the jig, and run my router (with a wide mortising bit) up and down the box turning the wood a little each time, and end up with a column. I made the front and rear pins adjustable in height so I can make any size column up to about 5” round by 40” long. To give the column a taper, I just set the rear center pin slightly higher than the front center pin. With a core box bit I can even use this to make flutes in the columns after I have rounded them. I have not done yet, but plan on drilling equally spaced holes in the front round to give the handle indexing properties.
In the pictures you can see the before and after test piece I did.
