How do you folks level protruding legs?

[Brian Penning]

No matter how well things fit during dry-fitting aprons to legs it seems that every now and then the legs are slightly proud/higher than the adjacent aprons.
Easy to fix if the aprons are higher than the legs but not vice versa of course because of the endgrain legs.
Anyone have a smart tip to level everything?
(Note that this isn't post in the Neanderthal forum.) lol

[Sean Hughto]

I get a belt from an industrial sander, cut it to lay flat, and glue it to a 4x8' sheet of plywood. Then turn the table upside down and move it over the giant sanding block until all the legs and aprons are the same height. You can glue a finer grit to the opposite side to smooth things out further.

[John TenEyck]

I work to make sure they don't come out proud. The best way I've found is to do the glue up upside down, with the aprons on the bench and legs pointing up. It's pretty fool proof - and I should know.

[glenn bradley]

I do what John does to avoid the problem and what Sean does when it happens anyway ;-) I have a piece of melamine with 220 stuck to it for such purposes. It hides in the cutoff bin when not in use.

[Eric DeSilva]

Doesn't matter with my unlevel floors. You just gotta rotate it until the legs all it the floor. ;)

The way David Marks used to do it was to put the piece on his dead-nuts-level torsion box. Then he had a small piece of wood--say a 2" x 2" piece of MDF--rigged with pencil at 45* so that the pencil tip was almost touching the top of the torsion box. Then he would keep the wood flat to the top of the torsion box and move it around so that the pencil draw a line around each leg. Then you can cut/sand down to the line and all will be well.

Or you can just make things with 3 legs.

[Sean Hughto]

:eek::eek: I thought I was kidding! :D:D

I'm more a neander and hence when Brian excluded Neander approaches, all I could offer was what I thought was a "fanciful" way of doing it. So does it really work?

A chisel, plane, or saw - or some combination thereof would quickly handle it for me.

[Forrest Bonner]

Ah yes! For those really skilled at hand cuts Eric's suggestion is a good one. But since my handskills are not that good and I had 10 store-bought chairs to 'level.' In addition to not being level, the slightly-splayed oak legs had been cut perpendicular to the length! So each leg had a pointy end on the floor in addition to not being level.

My mod on Eric's technique was to use the level surface of my workbench to hold a jig that slightly raised all four legs off the bench and securing the chair (and the jig) to the bench. I then laid a piece of Baltic ply scrap next to the leg and used my flush-cut saw to saw off each leg. Worked like a charm: all chairs are level and a full endgrain surface rests on the floor.

Since we have wood floors, each leg is capped with a felt pad.

Why would I have such poorly built chairs in the house, you might ask? Because my inspiration liked them, of course. I must admit that after 15 years they are still looking good, have no loose joints and sit flat on the floor with no wobble.

[Brian Penning]

Ah yes! For those really skilled at hand cuts Eric's suggestion is a good one. But since my handskills are not that good and I had 10 store-bought chairs to 'level.' In addition to not being level, the slightly-splayed oak legs had been cut perpendicular to the length! So each leg had a pointy end on the floor in addition to not being level.

My mod on Eric's technique was to use the level surface of my workbench to hold a jig that slightly raised all four legs off the bench and securing the chair (and the jig) to the bench. I then laid a piece of Baltic ply scrap next to the leg and used my flush-cut saw to saw off each leg. Worked like a charm: all chairs are level and a full endgrain surface rests on the floor.

Since we have wood floors, each leg is capped with a felt pad.

Why would I have such poorly built chairs in the house, you might ask? Because my inspiration liked them, of course. I must admit that after 15 years they are still looking good, have no loose joints and sit flat on the floor with no wobble.


Doesn't matter with my unlevel floors. You just gotta rotate it until the legs all it the floor. ;)

The way David Marks used to do it was to put the piece on his dead-nuts-level torsion box. Then he had a small piece of wood--say a 2" x 2" piece of MDF--rigged with pencil at 45* so that the pencil tip was almost touching the top of the torsion box. Then he would keep the wood flat to the top of the torsion box and move it around so that the pencil draw a line around each leg. Then you can cut/sand down to the line and all will be well.

Or you can just make things with 3 legs.

Um...guys...it's the TOP of the legs that aren't level with the aprons.

[Lee Schierer]

Um...guys...it's the TOP of the legs that aren't level with the aprons.

A sharp low angle block plane with a backer block clamped to the exit side of the cut will take care of this. Take shallow cuts.

[Frank Drew]

I always leave stiles and the tops of legs long (1/4"-3/4", depending) and only cut them to size after glue up; that extra length helps to protect the short grain at the top of the mortise. With exterior or passage doors, I'd leave the stiles long until just before installation so that the true corners don't get all banged up as the doors are moved around the shop. With reasonably sized work it's easy to cut the horns flush with the top rails using a sliding table or miter gauge or by hand, or, in the case of doors, with a shop-made skilsaw cutoff jig.

[Eric DeSilva]

Oops. Then I'm with Lee.