A challenging simple turning........

[Ken Fitzgerald]

A friend and customer.......the lady whose husband gave me the maple last night......had a simple turning project. She wanted to raise her kitchen table 3" so taller people could set under it without bumping their legs. I volunteered to turn some table leg extensions......She emailed me some photos of the table and dimensions of the table legs at vital distances on the table leg.

I thought about it for a couple of weeks. I finally made a drawing using my CAD program and showed it to her. She liked the design.

The first one took me 20-30 minutes.....The other 3 took me several hours. The challenge was to make the 4 leg extensions relatively the same. Maybe one of the hardest and simplest things I've turned so far!

Critiques and comments welcomed. Also ideas on how to do this more easily in the future........

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[Bernie Weishapl]

Ken that is a awesome job. You bet getting them all the is a hard thing to do. Beautiful Ken.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Hey Ken - your project looks like it turned out pretty good!

As far as ways to speed things up:
I am assuming that you had to hollow out the recess and not use a forstner bit. Can see that taking some time to get the dimensions correct. Did you cut all 4 pieces to length before you started? Did you use a template?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Steve............I actually used a Forstner bit to drill the holes. First I set stop block on my compound miter saw and cut them to length plus 2". Then between centers I turned them to the max diameter and squared up the top of the barrel using a skew. Then I marked the large "barrel" length on the cylinder. Then using a parting tool and my skew I turned the lower leg portion which is tapered from the barrel to the foot. Next I marked the inside edges of the beads and turned the beads using the skew. I turned the 2" scrap area which resided below the feet of the legs to a diameter that would fit into my chuck. I chucked up the piece using the live center on the tail stock to help center the "head" or top end and made sure the foot end didn't bottom out in the chuck. I spun it up and sanded the project ....I moved the tailstock away from the turning to see if it was centered and would remain that way. Once it was stable, centered and spun correctly, I put a Forstner bit in my tail stock using a jacobsen chuck and drilled the holes.
I marked the over all length and cut it loose using a parting tool. After completing all 4, I made a jamb chuck and once again measured a cut each one to length. I used a dial caliper to measure the over all lengths. I used a combination square to measure the depth of the holes.

Materials......3" poplar......overall length...4" depth of hole...1"....hole diameter 1 5/8"........beads...1/4" diameter...

The turning details really weren't that difficult. It was making 4 of them that were very similar in form and exact in height so as to raise the table 3" that made the project extremely difficult. I did only make 4 and they appeared to turn out okay. The owner was going to try them this evening when she got home. I'll call tomorrow to see how they worked.

[Gary DeWitt]

Cool idea, never would have thought of it. This same design could be used to even up the legs on a table that is uneven too, just make one of them slightly longer as needed.

I know what you mean about simple and difficult. The easiest looking project seems to get difficult quick when you have to match sizes.
They look good.

[John Hart]

Personally, I'd just tell her to quit making her tall guests sit under the table. But that's me.:rolleyes: Nice work Ken! If I were going to do it, I would turn a long cylindar, mark off all the pieces with a pencil, then turn all the profiles at once. Then part off the 4 pieces and chuck them up individually and bore out the centers. But then, I've never done this kinda thing, so I may be way off.

[Blake McCully]

Ken,
The first one is ALWAYS the easiest. The challenge is the making of each subsequent piece.

Nicely done.

[John Timberlake]

Very nice looking. As far as making them the same, the only dimension that really mattered is the height each will raise the table. When I make table legs with ball and claw feet, they only have to look alike when viewd from five feet away and they are three feet apart. Same here.