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The Eiffel Tower was the
engineering landmark of the 1889 International Exhibition celebrated
in Paris to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French
revolution. It was designed by Gustav Eiffel and his assistants. The
tower was not accepted at all by many, who complained its
construction.
The Eiffel tower is presently among the best well-known
monuments in the world. I have designed this pattern
with one purpose in mind: the model should replicate the
original as it is today to the highest possible degree.
To achieve this I have used the original drawings by
Eiffel himself and I have studied dozens of pictures of
the tower. I have measured the angles, heights and
widths of every section and I have carefully used these
measures in the design. Finally, I have reproduced the
framework of the sides with the only limitation of the
wood width to be used.
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In
this section I show you more pictures of the Eiffel
tower along with several pictures taken during its
construction. These pictures do not intend to be an
exhaustive account or complete instructions, just some
comments that can be of interest.
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I use masking tape to transfer the
pattern to the wood. It sticks strongly to the wood. Once the piece
of wood is covered with the masking tape you can glue the pattern to
the masking tape and proceed to cut the pieces. The wood used is 4
mm Baltic birch plywood. I have stacked in groups of two. The
stacked pieces are just glued in the sides. |
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The slots of the
floors of the tower must be beveled in a particular way: the
short sides are not beveled and the long sides are beveled in
the same direction. To achieve this, both extremes of the slot
are cut in first place with a round blade. With the round blades
the extremes can be cut without turning the piece, which is
maintained at the desired bevel angle. Using a flat blade, the
two long sides are then cut both of them in the same direction. |
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Stacked pieces need to be
separated before scrolling their beveled sides. Before
separating them we make small marks with the blade.
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We then separate them, and
using a ruler, we complete the shape of the piece or pieces
below the main one. We then proceed to scroll all the beveled
sides. This method is not valid for those sides of the pieces
that are not straight lines. We'll see an example of such
situation later. |
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The pieces of the first
section are done and we check they fit well. The inclined sides
encase exactly in the beveled slots so we simply have to glue
them in position without further concern. |
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We firstly glue the four sides
to the roof and let dry. Then we glue the corners one by one and
hold them in position with elastic bands. |
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The sides of the pieces
corresponding to the third section of the tower are slightly
curved. Once we have made all the inner cuts and the outside non
beveled cuts we separate the stacked pieces, we finish the first
piece and we use it as a pattern to draw the beveled sides with
a pen in the second piece. We then finish the second piece
normally. |
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To glue the four sides
of the first part of the third section we insert these sides in
their base, apply glue and hold them in position with welts
until they dry. We then glue the inside piece of this section.
We proceed in the same manner with the second part of this
section. |
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We then glue these two
parts together to form the third section. We hold both pieces
with welts as before. They fit with precision, the juncture is
very difficult to notice. The corners are sanded slightly to
give them a smooth aspect. The project is then mounted and
finished as you prefer. A few pictures of the finished project
follow. |
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Please note that this
pattern is registered and copyrighted. If you would like to have
it I offer it for 19 € plus shipping. The pattern is
computer made, which provides total precision, and nicely
printed for convenient scrolling.
Click
here to
buy this pattern. Write me to
info@finescrollsaw.com
for any questions. |
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This picture has kindly been sent by Wolfgang Roth from
Germany. |
Eiffel
Tower by Jose María Beltrán from Spain. |
Eiffel Tower transformed into an original
clock by George Allen from Tennessee, USA. Clock modification
available from him at
gallen4@bellsouth.net. |
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These three pictures show the Eiffel tower made with
gingerbread. They are courtesy of
Chef Toni Lynn Dickinson
& Chef Joseph Jae Kim, both instructors of The French Culinary
Institute in New York City, USA. It is five feet tall and took
them nine days to make. It looks really really tasty!!! |
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Eiffel Tower by Carlos Martín from Quintanilla de Onésimo,
Valladolid, Spain. |
This picture has been sent by
Santiago Fernandez from Barcelona, Spain. |
Eiffel Tower by Daniel Navarre from France. It is entirely made
with a hand saw in around one month of work. |
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Eiffel Tower by Jaap Dijkema from The Netherlands. |
Eiffel Tower by Martien van Der Els from The Netherlands. |
This
picture is courtesy of Francisco Gómez from Palma de Mallorca
(Spain). |
Eiffel Tower by
Giuseppe Cucchiara from Italy. |
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The following
pictures have kindly been sent by John Hobson from Canada. |
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This is an amazing picture I have received from Patrick Schneider
from the USA. He has made a 20 feet Eiffel Tower. He
wrote me: ¨ I just completed a 20 feet tall version of your Eiffel Tower model as a prop
for a dance at a high school, so it can definitely be scaled up. I built it
using a jigsaw (rather than a scroll saw). I made it out of 3/4 inch and
1/2 inch plywood and, while I had to modify your plans a very little bit (a
little bracing here and there), I largely stuck to your plans. It turned
out great! Everyone at the school was amazed. I couldn't have done it
without your plans. Thank you so much. ¨
Observe the
people compared to the tower! |
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This picture has
been sent
by
Ary Cadet from France
(Reunion island). |
This picture has been sent by Luigi and Andrea Cassani from
Italy. |
This picture has
been sent by Noel Gibbs from Australia. |
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This two picture has been sent by Antonio Valadés Flores
from Don Benito, Spain. |
This picture has
been sent by Christian Giot from Belgium. |
This picture has
been sent by Diego Herrera Bellido de Jerez de la Frontera,
Espagne. |
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These pictures have
been sent by Emir Hernandez from Montebello, California: ¨ Here
you have pictures of a 25 feet Eiffel Tower made by 1/2 inch plywood for
a French themed party, it was sensational, the only thing I modified
is the top part so it would be more visible, other than that the tower is a hit! Everyone can see it from the street. I thank you so much, couldn't have done it without your plans.¨ |
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This picture has been sent by Juan Manuel García Sánchez from
Caravaca de la Cruz, Murcia, Spain: ¨Here is the Eiffel tower
made with 40 kg. of chocolate, without any supporting structure. It
heights 2.10 meters (6.4 feet) and it is 1 cm thick (a bit less than
1/2 inch). It took 120 hours to make.¨
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If you are
interested in the Eiffel Tower you will love the following two
books and DVD: |
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A great Eiffel Tower site:
http://www.chouard-eiffel-equation.com
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