Wowser !    (US expression I believe,Jeff)

I sign on to get a fast fix of Oldtools, and the first msg from the bag
is
from Don Berry, saying....

..snips per FAQ..

> but has anyone mentioned making the curved profile and groove in the
> rail (by hand) yet?
>
>The groove for the panel might not be too bad;  start by marking a
> shallow groove with a scratch stock (mounted in a dowel?) or a beader,
> and carefully make it deeper with a chisel?  But what about the cove
>
..more snip. .

Now - I recently made something similar at the top of a door, and
found this the most tricky part.  I ended up using a mortice gauge
and then chiselling out the bulk of the waste.
For depth, I tried a wooden OWT (Router) which finished the groove,
and trimmed the sides with a Record 2156 side rabbet.  I had to
buy a Record 20 to finish up everything 

Luckily I didn't need to profile the cove, but having just been there,
I appreciate the difficulty, and would consider making a wooden plane
body to take an existing iron of the profile I needed.
This would need to be something similar to Don's suggestion of a
coachmakers plane, though it may be possible to bodge together
something for a one off which would hold the iron. even if it were a
built up 3 layer sandwich body, screwed together.  I happen to know
that Don McConnell is busy making some handrail planes, and
when I checked a reference he gave in George Ellis's 'Modern
Carpentry' of 1902 I find that handrail planes have convex curved
soles like a coachmakers to allow the blade to be presented to
the work inside a concave surface.

Of course, spin**le mould**s have been around a long time too,
powered without electrons..



ARW