I spent last week building the tops for two tables. This week was spent building the legs and putting the tables together. We are still building as we go and without a plan. Since legs for a table can be either pretty basic or they can be complicated, I needed to make a decision as to which way to go. I voted for pretty basic. Also, using oak for the legs can get a little spendy if we go the complicated route. I planned to make the legs out of two boards joined into a "L" shape only equal on both sides. One board of each leg would be 2 1/4 inches wide and the second would be 1 1/2 inches wide. The boards are 3/4 of an inch thick.
When glueing them together side by side, I would end up with a leg that is 2 1/4 inches wide. For two tables I will need 8 legs or 16 boards. It's always kind of nice to put a little taper on each leg, so dug up my handy dandy tapering jig that I had made a few years back and set it up to put a taper on each of the 16 boards. To keep the taper the same I had to cut the wider boards first and then move my rip fence in 3/4 of an inch and cut the narrow boards next. This jig works well, but I'm thinking that there may be better home made jigs out there. (I always feel the need to re-count my fingers after using this jig. I'll have to take some time to research other options or figure a way to hold the board in place without using my fingers.)
At the right you can see that I have all the boards tapered and I now have 16 little pieces - the other side of the taper that was cut off - that I can toss. (Actually, I put them by my Gurneys' catalog. This spring they will make good little garden stakes to mark my rows.) Next, I try to match a narrow board to a wide board based on the grain pattern. The closer the match, the better the two boards will blend in as one. Usually, you can get a good match on half of the boards and the other half will have to come together as best as they can.
This picture to the left shows the five steps of building each leg. The first one to the very left shows the two parts of each leg, one wide and one narrow. The second shows the two boards after I have cut the slots to insert the biscuits. The third set show the legs loaded up with glue and the biscuits also covered with glue. The fourth from the left shows the two boards being clamped together. I usually leave glued joints clamped for at least 6 hours while the glue dries. The final or the very right side shows a finished leg after it has dried. (Please disregard the rubber mallet to the far right. Looking at the mallet may lead you to think I sometimes need to provide a little love tap when lining up the boards.) The top of the leg is 2 1/4 inches on both sides and the bottom is 1 1/2 inches on both sides. After the eight legs were glued and dried, the sand paper came out to clean up any blemishes.
While I was in the sandpaper mode (Never a fun mode - I hate sanding.) I got the router out and rounded over the edges of each of the table tops. Part of my shop is in the basement and part in the garage with the two connected by a stairway. I do all the sanding in the garage trying to keep the dust out of the house as much as possible. (It works fairly well except the black pickup aways looks like I been driving down several gravel roads.) Once done with the routering and the sanding, assembly begun.
I attached each leg to the bottom of the table top. I started by placing a lot of glue into the corners and putting screws through the leg into the trim. Next I invented this little corner piece to give some stability to the leg since I did not plan to put any braces on the legs. I used the pocket hole jig to drill the holes for the screws. Once down, the legs felt pretty firm. They should stay in place. (Another "time-will-tell" test I guess.)
For a stain, I used Minwax Golden Pecan. I did the first table down in the basement shop. Once done, I noticed that the odor was rather strong. I thought maybe it was time to read the small print on the side of the can. It did say something about prolong contact with the vapors can cause brain damage. (Yep. That explains a lot.) So I move that table up to the garage and also stained the second table in the garage. The vapors were not so bad there but the temperature was only 40 degrees. After the stain had a chance to dry, I applied two coats of vanish. The vanish was a water based Polycrylic.
All in all, I had two glitches or opps when doing this project. To me they were big bo-boos and right away I couldn't believe that I did that. (Only admitting to the wrong, but not confessing where they are. Sometimes I think those errors must come from years and years of staining wood.) Any way, I did my magic craftsman skill of hiding blemishes and I really don't think they will be noticed. Besides, it is a Dagwood plan, so maybe that is the way it is suppose to be...
Nice job! Sometimes the Dagwood plans are the best kind. (sanding is my least favorite part - maybe it's because it's hard to see real progress)
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