I made this table for my wife to lay out and cut fabric or other "artistic" endeavors. It's nearly 4X7 feet. It sat just inside the door from the garage to her shop, so there was no issue getting it inside, where we expected it to remain forever.
However, stuff happens and we have moved from that house at 10,000 feet to a place at 5000 feet where I can suck in enough oxygen when I take a breath. Now the table must reside in a basement location where the door to the stairway is in a hallway, and there's no way to get there with the legs on.
The legs were glued (Titebond III) and screwed into the apron corners, not braced and bolted like they should have been, so now I need to cut them off and eventually reapply them.
I need suggestions for how to go about cutting them off and--more importantly, reattaching.
If you unscrew the legs, you should be able fit a flush cut saw (manual or powered) in there. Remove all of the existing glue and start over once the parts are in the basement. Write the phrase "good luck getting this out of here" on the bottom of the table as a joke for future residents of the house or as a reminder about building a proverbial boat in the basement.
I would try a multi-tool with an aggressive blade like the one Harbor Freight sells (yeah, I know, but occasionally I find something useful there).
Of course that's an expensive option if you don't have the tool already. Maybe cut off the legs at the apron and split the remaining stubs away with a chisel and mallet. New legs will be cheaper than a multi-tool.
HaHaHa My dad once built a huge runabout speedboat (this was in the 1930s) in his dad's barn. I think they had to cut part of the door frame off to get it out. The family cottage was on a mudpuddle lake that was not big enough to let it get up to full speed before he ran out of water.
I'm with CJ and John about removing the screws and then trying to cut through as much of the glue bond as possible before grunting the legs off. Your first, cheapest approach might be a hacksaw blade. Get one of the higher grade blades for its flexibility and strength; cheaper ones kink easily when not tensioned.
At some point, you may need to recognize that you'll just have to accept some damage to the legs. If you can minimize it, you should still wind up with enough surface to register to the apron.
As for re-attaching, I'd go for mechanical methods. Start with the screws, then get some corner brackets to attach inside the apron at the leg/apron meeting point on each side of the leg. Or make a 2x or 3x bracket that runs at 45 degrees from apron to apron, trapping the leg in a notch, screwed to the apron (that's probably better, but more complicated).
Might have worked better than water alone, but I wasn't that impressed with it. I always figured it was a holdover bit of conventional wisdom from hide glue days, but I've never done the research to check that. Maybe Bill T can clarify a bit.
cut off the legs at the apron and split the remaining stubs away with a chisel and mallet.
The legs are easy and cheap to replace. I don't know how successful I will be at describing....Install the new leg in the corner as before. Then to enhance stiffness add a corner brace at 45 degrees. Notch the corner brace so the corner of the leg fits in the notch. Screw and glue. This time use Titebond original which is easily reversible. Result will be rock solid.
cut enough leg off to get it down the hall. Dowel the legs back together. Dowel holes don't perfectly align? No problem. Drill an oversize hole and fill gap with epoxy, push leg into alignment, let cure.
Or cut a slot and use a spline. Walnut preferred and call it a design element.
Being that this is a work table and not a piece of fancy furniture I would remove the screws and smack the legs with a BFH. The glue line is brittle and the weakest link in the assembly. Most likely wood will break adjacent to the glue line, but it should go back together with fresh titebond or perhaps construction adhesive and screws.
But, depending on how the glue line gives way it could pivot the leg and bust out the skirt. That said, following your suggestion with a modest tap or two wouldn't hurt. It could well be that the glue did not bond in many places and it would break free easily.
As stated previously, since this is a work table and not fine furniture, this may be an option to think about --
Cut the legs off below the aprons leaving about 8" or so. Cut half lap joints on the nubs and four new pieces of leg material to yield the correct length of the legs. Then clue and screw together. The screw heads could be countersunk and covered with tapered plugs.
That's how we got it into her shop from the garage at the original setting. Now it's going down a stairway that leads off a hallway where there's less swing room. I'm beginning to think I'd be better off cutting it in half and reassembling in place with a removable apron reinforcement structure. Legs and top are 34 inches high. Stairwell is 37 inches wide.
Not directly apropos to your issue, but perhaps a way to garner additional brownie points... You can buy a stick down mat that is effecitvely the same stuff as the self healing cut mats but much cheaper and in larger sheets.
Here's an amazon link, although I'd be surprised if it isn't available cheaper elsewhere...
It is the nature of this adhesive that it has huge impact strength. A sharp blow is almost surely to cause the wood to fail and not the glue. Tension and heat might do something because the shear strength is less, especially if the glue is softened by moisture or heat. But getting all that wood hot enough to soften the glue will be a daunting task and the wood is likely to crack from quick drying out from the heat.
