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joseph j shields
04-20-2009, 11:23 PM
…for my sofa table:):):) ... (what were you thinking!!)

I’m building a sofa table for my church auction and the legs are made of lacewood. The problem is only the opposite surfaces (front and back) have the beautiful lacewood pattern. The right & left sides show none of the pattern and are quite boring. (picture 5)

What I needed is to have adjacent sides to have the pattern.

I know there are several ways to deal with this, but most seems way to complicated. So here is my easy solution:

1.I started out by building a simple jig for my bandsaw to cut the legs from corner to corner. (I decided the table saw would be too difficult.) The jig was very easy to construct and it worked great. I cut all 4 legs in about 5 minutes. (picture 2&3)

2.I then lightly hand sanded the cut sides.

3.I then rotated one of the pieces 180 degrees so that I had 2 good sides adjacent to each other.

4.I glued-up the pieces. I was surprised how easy it was to do this. My Festool table really helped. I just adjusted the different clamps pressure to ensure the edges were matching perfectly. (Picture 4)

5.After they dried, a couple of passes on the jointer and the thickness planer, and finally a couple passes on the table saw for the tappers and I was done.

I’m very pleased with the results. Now, all the outside facing surfaces of the legs look great with the lacewood pattern. (Picture 1)

Comments/questions welcome.


-jj

Jim Summers
04-21-2009, 9:27 AM
Excellent solution.

I don't think my old craftsman 12" bandsaw wold ever be able to resaw that, but, what kind/size/tpi blade is that? Did you re-inforce the legs with anything internal when you re-assembled them? Like dominoes or dowels or anything?

Thanks

joseph j shields
04-21-2009, 9:48 AM
Excellent solution.

I don't think my old craftsman 12" bandsaw wold ever be able to resaw that, but, what kind/size/tpi blade is that? Did you re-inforce the legs with anything internal when you re-assembled them? Like dominoes or dowels or anything?

Thanks


Jim,

I just used a standard 3/4" bandsaw blade. (The leg blanks were 1.75" x 1.75" to start with... the final dimension was 1 5/8" square)

I just glue the legs together... nothing else.

-jj

Carlos Alden
04-21-2009, 10:18 AM
Joseph:

I like your solution. However I would not have seen this as a problem. I was getting some wood the other day (Brazilian Walnut - very velvety chocolate black) and saw the lacewood. I like both sides of this wood equally well, and would have thought that they would contrast each other nicely. But I can also see where it would be a knockout piece with both facets having the big grain pattern.

Carlos

Prashun Patel
04-21-2009, 11:13 AM
Great solution, and great pix/explanation. On all (of the very few) projects I've done involving legs, orientation to showcase the grain is always an issue. I'll remember this one.