Once cut, clean up with block and jack plane. With these being bevel-up planes, I used my 25 degree blades for the end-grain of the tenons.
And the final result looks like this:
So, all in all I'm pretty happy with this for a first try. There are a few gaps near the top, but I hope to get better with additional joints etc. So next, I bandsawed the tapers and tried my best to flatten them with my planes. The inside, curved corner turn out to be difficult. I made out pretty good with my round-bottom spokeshave, but am still getting some chattering. I'm going to try and sharpen it again, and see if that helps, if not I'll move to sanding (if only I had an oscillating drum sander). So here is what the first leg turned out to look like.
I'm satisfied with that. However I put it under the table like the earlier getto mock-up, and I'm questioning if I've made the taper too thin at the bottom of the leg. The top is 2.5 inches thick, so I'm wondering if the leg taper needs to be thickened a bit. I'm going to pillow the leg which I think will make it appear even thinner from the side. Looking at it from the front however, it's 2 inches thick so looks fine, I wonder how often you would see it from a pure side view (all the legs will be at different angles after all.) Anyway, my plan is to try out a thicker taper on the remaining three legs to see what they look like.
So, onto the remaining three leg blanks. This time I marked the legs with my marking gage, on both pieces. Way better approach.... I also was very careful cutting the fingers out accurately on the tablesaw.
I cut the fingers for all the legs this way and bamm!!! With a little sanding of the fingers they fit beautifully, slide together very nicely!
So here is another reason why I love working wood and the people who do it. I sent a quick note to Ian Godfrey asking a couple of questions about technique for this joint. I figured he was a swell guy, but didn't think I'd would hear from him for a few weeks at least. I was really just trying to get some tips for when I use this joint again. So, not only does he get back to me right away, he offers to connect with me privately and address my questions directly!! I was blown away, what a guy!! - Thanks Ian.
So with a few pointers from Lord Godfrey and more attention to detail, I finished cutting the joints. Here is the result:
Much happier than the first leg. I tried a clamp and the small gap at the top, closed right up. Nice. My only regret at this point, (which was also brought up by Ian), was that this beautiful joint will be hidden under a giant slap of maple, ah well, that was why I decided to try it in the first place! Good practice in any case.
So, here's where things go off the rails a bit. I have been following a lot of wood working blogs, and I have always been amazed at how much trouble people go to create proper clamping set ups. Specifically with building specialized cauls and fixtures, always seemed like a lot of unnecessary work to me. Well lesson learned, it is worth it, and I had to learn the hard, painful way. Basically, the glue up of the first leg went really well, I seemed to get pressure in the right places and everything closed nicely. No problems. Well for the second leg, I don't know why, perhaps I took too long applying the Titebond III, but the glue started to get sticky and started to set on me with the joint still centimeters away from being closed!! And the clamping strategy I had used previously wasn't able to force it. Ten minutes of panic and desperation with all trying all king of clamping angles and hammering I was able to get it close, but wasn't able to close it like it should have based on the dry fit. I also damaged a lot of wood fibres with the clamps falling off the sides. Sigh.
So, the situation gets worse.... I practice a bit more with my clamps, use a few wedges etc and feel that I've got a more reliable approach. For the second leg, I work much faster with the glue, apply my new clamps and the mitre part of the joint closes up nicely. I walk away feeling like only one leg has been compromised. Well this morning, when I took the clamps off the second leg, I realized the tenons did not seat fully into the morise on the end-grain side!! I didn't even check this side because I figured if the mitre closed nice, everything else would have too. I've got like an 1/8 inch gap! I almost cried, I almost kicked the cat. Anyway, the lesson learned here is to take the time to make the proper cauls to get the proper clamping pressure. If I had done this, my joint would be easy to close up tightly, with no stress. I was so eager to get the leg together I blew it.
Anyway, I'll take a better look at it tonight. Maybe I can put a wedge of walnut in the gap and fill it. Not ideal but may be necessary. I do have the extra leg (the first one I built), but it might have more taper than I want so perhaps I'm stuck with that taper. I'll build the proper cauls for the last leg. I was also considering a glue with a longer open time, the Titebond didn't seem too forgiving in that respect. Unibond might be a better choice but it scares me as I would be using it inside the house and I hear it is nasty.
At least I'm learning.....
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