Neander Chippendale Lowboy Build – Part 5 Leg shaping and M&T’s

[Mike Allen1010]

Here are some pics of the final shaping of the legs before I start the carving. Initially I was shaping almost exclusively with rasps/files, but as I gained a little more confidence I found it was faster to remove waste working cross grain with a carving gouge.
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Trying to get the final continuous curve on the outer surface of the legs. I found a spoke shave was the way to go – left a nice smooth finish. This is my only spoke shave and based on this experience I think I might look for one with the rounded bottom that will allow me to work into tighter radius curves.
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Per George’s suggestion, trying to fair the curve on the last bit of the Knee where it joins the flat section of the leg. I think this is about as good as it’s going to get.
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The two outer surfaces are done and I’ve penciled in the line from the template for the two inward facing surfaces. Again the spoke shave and gouge’s got me pretty close to the layout line
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[Mike Allen1010]

Here’s some pics of the final shaped legs. I probably still have little cleanup/rounding to do, but that probably requires sandpaper and that’s gonna have to wait as I’m tired of working on the curves for now.
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One of my favorite things; finish planing of the side panels. I think the glue up of the three different boards for this panel worked out okay as the figure seems to hang together
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Time to lay out the M&T’s that join the side panels to the legs. To end up with a uniform height that doesn’t require a lot of trimming off the bottom of the legs to avoid rocking, I reference all the layout from the bottom of the feet. Dry fitting everything together lets me layout both the mortises Tennons at the same time on both legs. I will do the mortises first and then go back and cut the Tennons to fit (hopefully!).
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The depth of the mortises is different for the front legs versus the back legs because the front legs have the front quarter removed where a fluted columns supposed go, so the mortises can’t
be deep.

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I HAVE TO write the depth on each mortice – it would be epically disappointing to screw this up and then need to make another leg from scratch!

[Mike Allen1010]

Finally I get to do a little joinery on this project! The Tennons will have three shoulders as the side panels are supposed to fit flush with the outside surface of the legs. It’s a challenge for me to cut mortises with straight parallel sides. I usually end up paring the sides wider towards the bottom of the mortice, which makes for a disappointing surprise when dry fitting – ughhh! I really like this old “pigsticker” style chisel, the rectangular handle helps me keep cut the ends square.
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This is the first time I’ve used a Japanese mortice “Hook” (don't know what it's really called), it makes it really easy and fast to get the bottom of the mortises flat and smooth.

I have a couple saws I’ve promised to get done this weekend, but once that’s out of the way I’m planning to finish up the carcass joinery and hopefully get started on the ball and claw feet – I’m more than a little nervous about starting those!

Thanks for looking, Mike

[Mike Allen1010]

Please let me know if I should continue to post these build pictures, or just wait and post some pictures when the projects done?

It occurred to me these build pictures are probably "old hat" and not interesting for the hand tool woodworking's here in the Cave and I don't want to take everyone's time unnecessarily.

Cheers, Mike

[Daniel Rode]

Please keep posting the build pictures. It may be old hat to some but I am very interested in the details as the build progresses.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

PLEASE keep posting. Love it.