Splay Leg Table - Waiting for the Shellac to Cure

Bill Satko

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Methow Valley
Last Fall I took another week long class with Garrett Hack at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking. Another great class with Garrett, where he showed us how to build his splay leg table. You can go to the schools blog and see photo's of the class. You need to flip back to the older posts (Oct 7 & Sept 15th) to see the blogs concerning this class. I am finally getting around to finishing up the project. I have been busy at work and of course my bench build, so this has been sitting a while. I have not glued anything up yet, as I want to put some "socks" on the legs. I am thinking of using some Bubinga or Ebony that I have on hand for the "socks". Problem is that I have a couple of options with the "socks" and can not make a decision. One uses the splay angle (on the right) which makes the sock top level with the floor even though it might not look like it in the photos, while the other uses an angle greater than the splay angle to give it an angled look. I took some construction paper and worked up these mock ups. Of course the "socks" will be on all four legs.So what looks good to you?DSCN0688.jpgDSCN0690.jpgDSCN0691.jpg
 
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another vote for level with the floor,, another thought on this is the table resembles a shaker style to me and they wouldnt have made it any prettier than just simple splay bill.. sometimes to much sugar for a dime"_
 
Nice work on the table. It looks like a challenge to build. I did the plans for Garrett's version with the spinning drawer. Working out the angles for the ends of the aprons was an interesting exercise what with those legs that are tapered from the top.

I think I like the socks the way Garrett designed them. They seem to give the table a bit of an uplift.
 
Thanks everyone for your input, but I just asked my wife and she likes the socks with the slight angle. Now I really don't know what to do! This table is just a prototype, so I might just use the angled socks. I plan on making another table right after this with better wood as a gift to someone. It might be this same design or Garrett's Spinner Table.

Nice work on the table. It looks like a challenge to build. I did the plans for Garrett's version with the spinning drawer. Working out the angles for the ends of the aprons was an interesting exercise what with those legs that are tapered from the top.

I think I like the socks the way Garrett designed them. They seem to give the table a bit of an uplift.

Actually Dave, it seems more complicated than it ends up being. The key is using your sliding bevel gauge to capture the splay angle that is pleasing to your eye and marking it on a spare piece of wood or your workbench so you don't lose the angle. You just have to remember that the splay angle affects many elements of the build. A good example is, if you want to have a drawer in the apron you have to remember to cut the opening at the splay angle or your drawer will not slide in parallel with the floor, but at an angle which might interfere with the top.
 
It appears that you folks actually 'plan' these kinds of details! :) I always put on some 'stuff' and when done I just tell folks that 'I planned it that way'! :)

I was not aware of the school in Washington, thanks for the post. Its only about an 8 hour drive. Thanks. Russ
 
Thanks everyone for your input, but I just asked my wife and she likes the socks with the slight angle. Now I really don't know what to do! This table is just a prototype, so I might just use the angled socks. I plan on making another table right after this with better wood as a gift to someone. It might be this same design or Garrett's Spinner Table.

Well, I went with my wife's suggestion and created the socks or cuffs on the legs with a slight angle. Although I do not show it in the pictures, I trimmed the surface of the legs by 1/8" deep on each leg side about 5" from the toe. I did this by running it into the tablesaw blade set into a sacrificial fence. I had set a stop block at the outfeed side of the blade to make sure I did not cut too far.

After laying out the angle of the sock top on the leg, the next step was to handsaw this line to the proper depth and then chisel it out to match the table saw cuts. It is at this point, I realized how difficult this would be. The saw cut would not be perpendicular to the surface but would be tilted to one side in addition to the angled cut. In essence, it was a compound cut only going 1/16" deep. Flashes of creating some ramped mitre box with this unique angle cropped up in my mind, but I discarded the time that would take and decided to trust my hands and eyes. I just eyeballed the line as it ran from one surface of the leg to the other and made sure the tilt of the saw was correct. It turned out great as the photo show. Of course another ramification of these angled cuts at the sock tops was that the top edge of the ebony would have to also be angled to match the cuts. Angled on way on two leg faces and then angled the opposite way on the other two faces. Nothing like a lot a complexity to get the blood flowing!

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I had sliced the ebony in half on the band saw so that as they wrapped around the leg, the grain would match. I ripped each of these halves in two and then marked them to remember how to fit them on the legs.

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Prepping the ebony to fit the legs is in the next post.
 
My next big concern was how to recreate this compound angle on the ebony accurately so that it exactly matched the leg cuts. If I did it wrong by just a hair, then there would be a gap where the ebony and leg met. I must admit that all the time I worked on this, I knew I could fail miserably. It really was weighing on me, but I had no choice but to go forward. It was a classic example of being out of your comfort zone.

First thing I did was build a custom mitre box that matched the angle across the face of the ebony. I then devised some blocks, cut on my table saw after determining the angles that I could use on my shooting board in order to fine tune the compound angle. It looked ugly but worked OK. I am going to build more of these tables and may have the same problem, so I probably will come up with something more elegant.

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Then I started glueing on one face at a time. The first one needs to hang over a little on both sides so that the others have something to butt against. The next one needs to butt against the first and hang over a little for the next one to have something to butt against.

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Oh, a bunch of small c clamps are really handy. I bought a box of them for this project. I bet you are wondering how the last piece of ebony fits. You should be, because this is the tricky part. That is on the next post along with planing it down to match the leg. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.
 
So the procedure for these ebony cuffs has been to glue up one at a time and fit the next one against the previous glued up one. The last one needs to be slowly trimmed until it just fits between its neighbors.

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Now after everything is glued up, the fun part, planing it all to see how it will look.

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The squiggly line is to prevent me from planing that last bit. I want to leave that on all of them until I am ready to give the legs a final pass with a freshly sharpen blade. This will clean up all marks on the legs. Right after that, I will give them a wash coat of shellac to prevent them from getting dirty when I glue the legs and aprons together.
 
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Very nice Bill. Very nice. I also like the pics you have taken they self explanatory. That bench of yours is looking more and more enticing. I see a definite plus to the use of a decent hard wood for your top. Pine and spruce i used just does not wear well.

That table is going to look real elegant when done. Nice detail work. Ok now how about some hickory inlay in that black with say something like a fleur de lys cut out. :D

You must be enjoying your woodworking now eh? Pity about the honey do jobs.
 
Well, I missed the initial posts in this thread, but I would have sided with your wife, Bill. I like the angled socks better than the level ones. Thanks for the ride-along. :thumb:
 
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