8' Mahogany columns

Customer wants them cut to 46" tall.  Shame to cut them.  Column is actually upside down.  More later.

The bottom base before and after.  The white pieces on the smaller piece are Corian strips to protect the shoulder from saw marks.  They are held in place with hot melt glue.  If you look closely you can see one of the six nails that were also used to hold the base on.  Cutting them with a hacksaw blade is the hardest part.  

The laser on the tripod that allows me to mark a straight line around the column.  Used my trusty hot melt to glue the laser to the tripod.  Second picture shows the start of the cut.  I am using a 24 TPI saw that cuts on the pull which allows the saw blade to be much narrower and gives better control of the cut.  Saw also has not set to the teeth, keeping kerf equal to the thickness of the blade.  

I love it when a project turns out this nice.  I really didn't like the idea of cutting the original columns and happily I was wrong.  We now have the remainder of the 2 bases and caps to do something with.   They will require 13" to 16" columns but there are so many cool possibilities.