How do you make legs when you have no bandsaw or tablesaw?

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Ali

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If you have no bandsaw or tablesaw in your workshop, how do you go about making legs for tables and chairs?

For example, say we just look at tapered straigt legs (before we get involved with more complex spiral legs), how can you make them from either timber or laminated timber quickly and accurately? Any ideas?
 
Hew with an axe to take off most of the waste, then hand plane to the tapered line.
 
I agree

Tapered square legs either straight or curved would be fairly easy to make without any machinery. Just chop away most of the surplus wood with an axe and then use a scrub plane to remove the axe marks and a jointer plane on a straight leg or a spokeshave on a curved leg to remove the scrub marks. That is the way the oldtimers did dit.

An electrical hand plane might be a good roughing tools for a modern day person who isn't very skilled with the axe. However it does not produce a flat nor straight surface so it is only a roughing tool. Drawknife and a shavehorse might also be an idea if you want to avoid the use of an axe.
 
Using machines: Router table/spindle moulder with a simple jig; or thicknesser with a tapering sled.

Alternatively, saw (by hand or with a jigsaw/circular saw) and plane to size.
 
A lot depends on the timber, but for most European hardwoods it's really not difficult. Mark up the leg in pencil where you want the taper, clamp the leg upside down (i.e. toe uppermost) in your vice with about 100mm sticking up, saw on the waste side of the line, when you get near the vice raise another 100mm up, repeat until you've completed the cut, clean up down to the line with a bench plane, mark the other taper on the adjoining face and do the whole thing again, this time use the off-cut from the first cut as a packing piece to keep it square in the vice. A cheap hard point saw from B&Q is perfectly adequate.

As I say, if you're working with oak, elm, ash, sycamore or something similar then there's absolutely nothing difficult about this at all. If you were working with ebony or lignum vitae it would be a tougher job. You don't need axes or drawknives, just the basic tools you've probably got lying around.

One final thing, "joint first, shape second", so cut the mortice and tenons before tapering the leg, that way you've got more square and true reference surfaces to work from.

Good luck!
 
custard":2tku2pkl said:
A lot depends on the timber, but for most European hardwoods it's really not difficult. Mark up the leg in pencil where you want the taper, clamp the leg upside down (i.e. toe uppermost) in your vice with about 100mm sticking up, saw on the waste side of the line, when you get near the vice raise another 100mm up, repeat until you've completed the cut, clean up down to the line with a bench plane, mark the other taper on the adjoining face and do the whole thing again, this time use the off-cut from the first cut as a packing piece to keep it square in the vice. A cheap hard point saw from B&Q is perfectly adequate.

As I say, if you're working with oak, elm, ash, sycamore or something similar then there's absolutely nothing difficult about this at all. If you were working with ebony or lignum vitae it would be a tougher job. You don't need axes or drawknives, just the basic tools you've probably got lying around.

One final thing, "joint first, shape second", so cut the mortice and tenons before tapering the leg, that way you've got more square and true reference surfaces to work from.

Good luck!

FWIW, I would think the more refined sequence above would be best.
Using an axe or drawknife is quite a skilful process and not being dominated by the grain can be quite difficult for the unwary, and I can imagine, in some instances being left with some expensive undersized firewood.
Some of the older places I work in, including my own house had floorboards, door stiles and windows etc were
fitted in very un level and bendy openings, using the carpenters axe
It can be The best thing for scribing a 4"x 3" oak door stile.
Regards Rodders
 
custard":nnjxys3l said:
A lot depends on the timber, but for most European hardwoods it's really not difficult. Mark up the leg in pencil where you want the taper, clamp the leg upside down (i.e. toe uppermost) in your vice with about 100mm sticking up, saw on the waste side of the line, when you get near the vice raise another 100mm up, repeat until you've completed the cut, clean up down to the line with a bench plane, mark the other taper on the adjoining face and do the whole thing again, this time use the off-cut from the first cut as a packing piece to keep it square in the vice. A cheap hard point saw from B&Q is perfectly adequate.

As I say, if you're working with oak, elm, ash, sycamore or something similar then there's absolutely nothing difficult about this at all. If you were working with ebony or lignum vitae it would be a tougher job. You don't need axes or drawknives, just the basic tools you've probably got lying around.

One final thing, "joint first, shape second", so cut the mortice and tenons before tapering the leg, that way you've got more square and true reference surfaces to work from.

Good luck!



Well, he did ask for a quick method.
I imagine that ripping through 4 feet of hardwood per leg with a B&Q saw would take some time.
 
dzj":2a83ik4g said:
custard":2a83ik4g said:
A lot depends on the timber, but for most European hardwoods it's really not difficult. Mark up the leg in pencil where you want the taper, clamp the leg upside down (i.e. toe uppermost) in your vice with about 100mm sticking up, saw on the waste side of the line, when you get near the vice raise another 100mm up, repeat until you've completed the cut, clean up down to the line with a bench plane, mark the other taper on the adjoining face and do the whole thing again, this time use the off-cut from the first cut as a packing piece to keep it square in the vice. A cheap hard point saw from B&Q is perfectly adequate.

As I say, if you're working with oak, elm, ash, sycamore or something similar then there's absolutely nothing difficult about this at all. If you were working with ebony or lignum vitae it would be a tougher job. You don't need axes or drawknives, just the basic tools you've probably got lying around.

One final thing, "joint first, shape second", so cut the mortice and tenons before tapering the leg, that way you've got more square and true reference surfaces to work from.

Good luck!



Well, he did ask for a quick method.
I imagine that ripping through 4 feet of hardwood per leg with a B&Q saw would take some time.

No, it wouldn't take much time at all. A beginner, taking real care to stay close to, but on the waste side, of their pencil line, could complete a leg in under ten minutes. A more experienced man could saw both tapers on a leg in two minutes or less. Furthermore, a B&Q hard point disposable saw will almost certainly be much sharper and ready for work than any venerable Disston, axe or drawknife that a beginner is likely to have access to.
 
custard":tl1v7rm5 said:
A more experienced man could saw both tapers on a leg in two minutes or less.

I bet he'd be well knackered after that. :)
 
I like the tip re morticing before tapering - simple, but i bet it wouldn;t have occurred to me...
 

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