The Technique of FURNITURE MAKING

Contemporary leg treatments

Contemporary designs are usually devoid of ornamentation and rely almost exclusively on rectangular, circular or oval sections either straight, tapered or flared. Figure 206 shows various leg shapes and sections currently used by both craftsmen and industry.

Turned legs

Round legs are more easily formed in the lathe, but if none is available they can be worked by hand. The block is first planed up to octagonal shape and the arrises so formed planed with a smoothing-plane, creating further arrises which are then taken out with hollow moulding-plane, cooper's Spokeshave or curved scraper. The secret of quick and accurate work—and it is only necessary to watch a skilled joiner knocking up heavy oak cylinders with a draw shave to appreciate how quickly it can be done—is to construct a suitable cradle to hold the wood firmly while it is being shaped, and to take the cuts through from end to end every time, working the leg as a whole and not in sections. This applies equally to round taper legs which are planed square taper and then rounded. Church staves, shafts and poles usually have to be done by hand as they are too long or too whippy in the length for the average lathe, and it is always better to prepare a female template of the rounding rather than trust the eye alone. If the section varies throughout the length, i. e. the taper is a gradual swell, several templates may be necessary, and are simply prepared by arbitrarily fixing several distances along the length and boring holes of the appropriate diameters in a block of hardwood (207:1), which is offered to the work as the rounding proceeds and swivelled round to

create a telltale shine on the high spots. If the shaft or leg is oval in section then the templates can be cut out of thick cardboard (207:3), and if the shape of the wood does not permit the template being slid along from one end, then it can be hinged with a paper-fastener as in 208. Adjustable templates can be purchased, composed of thin brass strips free to slide between two rubber-cushioned locking bars (207:2). While this is an admirable tool for many purposes, i. e. complex mouldings, etc., it is usually better to use a totally enclosed template for all-round shaping.

Jointing turned and shaped legs

Mortise or dowel holes in turned legs can be marked out and cut into the square section with the holes plugged with softwood before turning in the lathe, or a simple cradle can be made (209:1) to hold the finished turning. This is an open-sided box with the bottom and sides at

true right angles, and the leg held in position by end screwing or nailing and wedging it in the fixed position. All boring out can then be done vertically on one face, the box turned over on its side and the other face also bored vertically to give a right-angled orientation. Marking out of mortises can also be done by fixing the work between the lathe centres and using the tool rest as a guide for the pencil; or right-angled marking can be done as shown in 209:2, with a shaped block on which the mortise centres (X, X) are laid out G-cramped/C-clamped to the leg. A method of attaching turned taper legs is shown in 210, with a firm tenon turned on the leg. The shoulders of the leg are also counterbored for additional strength, and the leg is secured to the block by gluing and wedging from above, after which the block is glued and screwed to the carcass base or framing.