Milling for legs - proper steps please?

[Dan Karachio]

I'm a little new to furniture (vs cabinets) as well as milling. I have a 7' long x 6" wide piece of 8/4 sapelle (actual about 2 1/4"). I want to mill into 28" legs and I don't want to screw this up in terms of getting twisting, warping and, oh yea, nice square legs at 1 3/4". I have a 6" jointer and a 12.5" lunch box planer, bandsaw and table saw. The wood has been in my shop for two months and the humidity is about 50%.

Should I cut out rough pieces for each leg, then joint, plane and rip each to final dimensions?
OR
Should I joint the entire board, face, then edge, then plane, then rip, then cross cut out each piece?

One last question please. At which steps should I let the wood sit a day or two before proceeding?

Edit: I think this is very helpful: http://modernwoodshop.com/2008/03/25/nightstand-project-rough-milling-the-legs/

[Matt Day]

I like to rough cut the legs to length plus a bit of extra before hitting the jointer, so I don't waste too much material trying to joint the entire board at once (twist, cup, etc are amplified the longer the board).

I check the ends for checking (cracks) and account for a few inches of waste there, then rough cut a few inches longer than what I need. For your case, I'd probably cut the end piece about 34" to play it safe as you have plenty of material.

This also depends on how "rough" your stock is. You might want to pick your leg material out of the middle of the board if you can see the grain, but if you can't due to it being very rough cut you might want to hit it with a block plane to see what's under there before making any cuts.

[Steve Jenkins]

If it is pretty straight you might sneak 3 legs out of the 6" width by bandawing at a shy 2". Regardless first I would cut any end checking off one end first then cut to 29" (1" longer than finished leg). Rip next if its straight. If not, joint one edge then rip. You may just get 2 legs from the 6" width so you would have to crosscut again at 29" to get the other legs. At this point many people let the wood sit for a couple days while they work on other aspects of the job. I have never had a problem going straight to milling to final dimension. Joint each rough leg on two adjacent faces then plane to final size.

[Dan Karachio]

Thanks to both of you!

[Steve Schoene]

One other point to consider. Ideally, you want legs to be riftsawn so that all four sides have similar looking straight grain, instead of two sides with flat sawn grain and two with quarter sawn.

Sometimes achieving that takes some finagleing to manage depending on your rough lumber.

[Dan Karachio]

Absolutely Steve, I lucked out with this board, but now know what to look for.