8 night-stand legs

[Joe Watson]

Have plans on making a bedroom set; one big, one small dressers, bed and two night tables.
Being fairly new to wood working thought the night stand would be the best place to start (based on the bed height plans (made some rough prints of the bed)). Being this thread is about legs, it will be an open design night stand. Night stand will be 28"H x 18"D x 24"W, have one 6" drawer at the top, the legs will run down and through a bottom shelf, then there will be four "feet" glued to the bottom of the legs below the shelf.

Anyway, heres the legs.
Made a template freehand, no plans - out of a pine 2x4 cut to 1-3/8 squared, 30" long then used spring loaded caliper and a pencil to make the rest of the legs.
All legs are from Walnut, four of them have a peice of maple glued in the corner at a 45.
The ones with the maple strip will be the front legs, stripe will be on the outer corner of the table.

Not counting the template, i made ten legs in all, two of them didnt pan out too well :)
The first three where made with-out a steady rest, that third one was scrap which created the need to use the credit-card and buy another toy :D
They are not perfect, but close enough that if there is 3 or 4 inches of air between them you cant tell. The only time i used dial caliper was at the very bottom (left end of image), wanted that to be excatly 1" + .01 so when the holes in the shelf are drilled, there is no slop and the lip of the leg rests on top the shelf.
The front two in the image still need to be cut to length.

[charlie knighton]

very nice Joe, i like your maple strip with the walnut. i remember someone else making some table legs. keep us informed on your progress. enjoy

[Gary Max]

Looks like all that work paid off nicely. How do you plan on finishing them??????????

[Bernie Weishapl]

Joe those are nice. My granddad always told me it is not always perfect because it was hand made. Look pretty good to me.

[Joe Watson]

Thanks alot guys.
Will update the thread down the line, once the night stands are done.

I think i would have like your granddad, Bernie :)
Coming from a metal CNC machine shop background - its alittle getting used to - but im coming around to it.


Looks like all that work paid off nicely. How do you plan on finishing them??????????
Yea... im pretty happy, in the beginning each leg took me around 45-50mins counting sanding, after the steady rest (and modding it (cutting it narrower) the bottom locking plate so i dont have to completely unscrew the thing to remove it from the ways) and after getting acouple under my belt it was around 30-35mins - if it was not fun (and challenging) i would probably spring for one of them duplicators or make a home-made one, theres a few more things which i want to make that will require legs (and some decoration to the corner of the dressers).

As for the finish: more then likely it will be Watco Walnut (not sure if Dark or Medium) Danish Oil (picked up two cans, one big (gallon i think) and small for 8$ (for both)) and then a glossy clear over that. But i am diffinitly open for suggestion.
Not sure how im gonna handle the maple strip - tape it off before the Oil or clear coat the strip first and Oil over it (done that before and it worked out will, the Walnut Danish Oil did not change the color of the maple - but the maple strip was a bit bigger then 1/8 and not on a round surface - im leaning more towrds the tape).

_

[Gary Max]

I would go with the clear----- you already have good natural color.

[Joe Watson]

With one of the scrap lags, i hit a portion of it with only clear before i headed to work today... just looked at it now (just got home) and not sure how much i like it - made another small night stand from walnut (full side - no legs) and hit it with the Watco Walnut and really like how dark it came out - the maple strips are whats leading me to just clear, nice and easy. Wont be for a few more days that ill be finishing it, so theres still time for a decision :)