Quarter Sawn White Oak Legs - All 4 sides

Brent Dowell

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Say, I seem to remember a technique for making table/chair legs with QSWO grain on all four sides. It seemed to have used either 4 triangular shaped pieces of wood, or a lock miter to put it together.

Does this sound familiar? Can anyone point me to a magazine or online article that might describe the technique?

Thanks!
 
Say, I seem to remember a technique for making table/chair legs with QSWO grain on all four sides. It seemed to have used either 4 triangular shaped pieces of wood, or a lock miter to put it together.

Does this sound familiar? Can anyone point me to a magazine or online article that might describe the technique?

Thanks!
Right on both counts - and I believe it was Fine Woodworking about 2 or 3 years ago.
 
Another method is to take some stock, and laminate it. This gives you 2 good edges to your leg, and two edges with laminations showing. Then rip two thin pieces of veneer - like 1/8" thick - and glue it over the edges with the laminations. You then chamfer the edges, and the glue line virtually disappears, and you now have four good faces showing.

Like this: leg-qs.jpg
 
Mark Singer had a little different method and did a Tutorial on making legs with 4 good sides, but I think it was on SMC before FWW got started.
 
I've done the mitered technique on a tables. I don't have any pics of the leg ends but I 45'd the sides of each board and used #0 biscuits to line them up and added lots of clamps. They look good, but I also didn't use QS oak. I tried to at least match the grain patterns so they looked like solid stock. Below is the table.


http://www.mommashappy.com/projects.html
 
Rift sawing your lumber will give you the same look on all four faces without going thru all that trouble. And it is very stable, as well. Just need to start out with thick enough planks. I use a homemade window to orient the end grain just right (grain running on the diagonal from one corner to the opposite corner) then turn on the bandsaw.
 
I have used the method Art describes several times and am convinced its the way to go. This picture shows it a little bit (QS ash). Very easy to do with great results. Cutting the legs on the rift is great but you would have to start with mighty big stock to end up with, say, 3x3 legs. Barry
 

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Glenn, Thanks for that link. I've subscribed to FWW on and off over the years. I went to the link and it irritated me that I'd have to pay for the online version, when I've got a stack of these things laying around.

I saw that the link listed the volume number, and I can't believe it. I went to the garage and found I had that issue. What's an even bigger surprise was it took me 10 seconds of searching to find it. (I swear I spend more time looking for things than I ever do actually 'doing' things...)

I think I might even have a lock miter bit that just might work...
 
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