Popular Woodworking – August 2019

(Michael S) #1
POPULARWOODWORKING.COM ■ 35

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the smallest portion of the leg and
thus the weakest; cross grain here
might make for a sad and short life
for your table. After the leg blanks
are cut to shape we need to get the
joinery out of the way before we do
any of the shaping.

Tenons and Mortises
The legs attach to the post with a
simple mortise-and-tenon joint.
The end of the legs where the ten-
ons will be cut needs to be square
and straight.
Three mortises chopped into
every other facet around the bottom
of the post attach the legs. There’s
no great method that I know of to
lay out the leg mortises that doesn’t
require making some kind of jig. I
had good success using the^1 / 2 " chis-
el I set the mortise gauge to in order
to lay out the mortise width. Simply
lay the chisel on the facet where the
mortise will be, eyeball it for center

and straightness, then trace down
either side of the chisel.
You can measure and fi nd the cen-
ter of the facet, mark^1 / 4 " on either
side of center and square off the bot-
tom of the post to lay out the mortise
sides. This gets a little trick, because
there isn’t much area on the bottom
of each facet to register the square.
A small square is helpful. Take your
time and double check your layout
before you chop your mortises.
Fit each leg to their mortises and
number them; go for a snug fi t. The
legs are diffi cult to clamp in place
once the glue is applied at assem-
bly time. If they fi t tight and hold
themselves in place, you won’t have
to try to clamp them. The upper part
of the mortises will intersect so you
may have to chamfer the ends of the
tenons to keep them from contact-
ing one another inside the post.
After all the mortises are com-
plete, dry-fi t the legs and post. On a

fl at surface check to make sure the
feet are sitting fl at. If they aren’t,
you can use a block plane to level
them. Also, with a framing square
check the straightness of the post.
If it has a lean, the feet or the top of
the tenon can be trimmed allowing
the off ending leg to move up.

Legs and Feet
Even though the legs look like they’d
be diffi cult and time-consuming to
shape, there isn’t much to them.
Don’t worry about getting the
three legs identical to one another
(the originals aren’t). Once they’re
mounted to the post, slight diff er-
ences in the shape of the legs are
almost invisible.
Start by thinning the sides of the
leg with a spokeshave just above
the feet.
The side taper goes up the leg from
the thin area about 3" and down the
sides of the feet leaving the very end
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