Popular Woodworking – August 2019

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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