Making thick legs?

[Brian Penning]

I need to make 3-4" thick legs for a massive desk. Wood is cherry.
Anything wrong with simply gluing 2 boards of 2" thick material. Match the grain as best as possible.
The desk is sort of an open style so the legs will be seen from all 4 sides.
TIA for any and all replies.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Eating a lot of sweets did it for my wife....

[Karl Brogger]

Nope. Nothing wrong with that. I typically glue up legs.

Eating a lot of sweets did it for my wife....

HA!

[Randy Klein]

Here's 2 ways of doing it:
A laminated version with grain matching

Another style that uses 4 smaller pieces of wood

[Frank Drew]

Brian,

You can of course glue up to get your required thickness, but 12/4-16/4 cherry shouldn't be impossible to find and, IMO, solid is better than laminated. One reason to buy thick stock when you see it, for just this application.

[Jamie Buxton]

I really dislike seeing the seams in glued-up legs. It looks to me like I'd been too lazy to find the right stuff. Like Frank says, 16/4 cherry is available. One of my local hardwood dealers stocks it. Another way to do it is like the Mission manufacturers built posts for furniture that looked like they're quartersawn on all four faces. They'd start with four 4/4 boards, and glue them up to form a hollow post. The trick is that they'd put the seams at the corners of the post. Your eye is accustomed to grain changes at the corners, so you never see the seam, even if the boards aren't perfectly color-matched. You can put the seam at the corners by beveling the edges of each board, or you can do like those guys did and use a lock miter joint. The lock miter probably doesn't change the strength of the leg, but does help in locating the boards during glue-up.

[George Bregar]

OP nothing wrong with laminating if you can live with the grain matching, but pretty hard to hide in cherry. You can always use four pieces of thinner stock and use a lock miter joint to provide four "faces"...thats what I did on my QSWO Morris chair legs. More work but worth it.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Brian,

I recently finished a cherry pedestal candlestand/table. I bought some 8/4 cherry locally, matched the grain as closely as I could, glued it up and turned it.

99 out of a hundred people don't notice the seams.

[Stephen Cherry]

I like to make legs from 4 pieces. A 3x3 leg would have three 1x2 pieces side by side, with a 1x3 piece on the end of the three. On the desk, the 1x3 piece would be at the show side at the front and rear of the desk. The side would show two pieces- 1 inch and 2 inches. The three piece side would be between the two end legs- the least visable side.

While it is possible to get thick cherry, I like thin because it drives me crazy to throw away the sap. Also, I think these legs are more stable.

[glenn bradley]

Here's another method. A thick veneer is sawed off the original stock and laminated to the sides where the center seam might be. The leg in the upper left shows this best in the pic although these blanks are one piece and I am just using the technique to get a matching grain on all sides. The same thing could be done on a glued up blank. Once final shaping is done the corner seams vanish into the vertical grain.

[Jamie Buxton]

Here's another method. A thick veneer is sawed off the original stock and laminated to the sides where the center seam might be. The leg in the upper left shows this best in the pic although these blanks are one piece and I am just using the technique to get a matching grain on all sides. The same thing could be done on a glued up blank. Once final shaping is done the corner seams vanish into the vertical grain.

I like that. Riftsawn lumber made from flatsawn!

[Tim Sproul]

Rift sawn stock, IMO looks best for legs. Rift is also not too difficult to grain match decently. If you laminate, there is no such thing as too many clamps.

[Dewayne Reding]

Eating a lot of sweets did it for my wife....

And under no circumstance park more than 100 feet from the door of a store. Make me drive around the lot as long a necessary, or drop you off at the door

Back to the subject at hand. Will the flatsawn veneer trick work using MDF core for most of the thickness? I am contemplating that for some bedposts that will be 5-6". How thick should the veneer be to minimize chance of delamination, yet be thick enough to take a good hit in use. 3/8 be too thick?

[glenn bradley]

Will the flatsawn veneer trick work using MDF core for most of the thickness?

Thread-jack Alert! MDF would not be my choice for any laod bearing operation. The box method shown by Randy in his link would be my preferred method for legs that size. Miter-lock joint would be even better but can be a bit fussy.

[steven c newman]

Start with a wide 8/4 board. Rip down the middle. Bookmatch the grain in the cut. Fold the two halves up ( or down) like a piece of paper. As long as the grain matches, seam will alomost go away. Just my $.02 worth.