Tapered table legs.

Re: Tapered table legs.

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

what is the wood? Cutting through the glue joint is not going to look good. Try to find some 3" lumber.

Re: Tapered table legs.

Bruce, a MN Galoot

Walnut. My supplier doesn’t have 3” stock.

Re: Tapered table legs.

Don Stephan

Several years ago I had to make legs, tapered on two sides, that also required thicker stock than available. And I prefer rift stock for table legs so the grain pattern is the same on all four sides of each leg. After playing with some sketches and drafting tools, I realized I could laminate two pieces of 8/4 stock, cut out the leg blanks as diamonds so the glue joint was at opposite edges, then tapered two sides. I played with board growth ring orientations so the grain pattern on the cut out diamonds was the same on all four faces - thinking this meant I used flat cut boards to make the laminations? Because the glue joints are on opposite edges, they aren't noticed.

That's a good idea...

John in NM

I've veneered over the laminations, but I like your method a lot better!

Re: Tapered table legs.

Barry Irby

I agree with Bill, if your taper cuts into the second layer exposing the glue line it will look terrible. I think tapering the laminations will look funny also.

When confronted with this I was working with oak and had no thicker stock. I laminated the legs making two of the opposite faces Quartersawn. Then I tapered two faces at right angles to each other. Then I veneered the two laminated faces with veneer I sawed myself giving four quartersawn faces. One of those faces was straight and one had a very gentle angle and the homemade veneer bent around the angle easily. Then I cut a very small bevel on all four corners and the edge of the veneer disappeared. All of the glue was Titebond. The legs are five years old now and are fine. In your case you might have veneer three sides or taper the interior lamination to avoid cutting through the face. The veneer will had the tapered interior lamination.

Re: Tapered table legs.

Jesse Cloud

Tapering lams requires a bit of planning, but after that its easy.

First, build a planer sled with a fence at the back to hold the lam in place.

Then plan a series of shims, varying in thickness from the max you wish to remove to next to nothing. I like to do a shim about every inch for a simple taper like a leg.

Glue the shims in place.

Then set your planer blade height to cut off a wee bit, put in the next leg, repeat as needed, lowering the depth until you are done. Try it on some scrap first to verify your strategy.

Michael Fortune had a nice article about this technique in Fine Woodworking a few years ago.

BTW, the chairs you saw in my dining room had legs made from tapered and bent lams.