I’ve glued up the frame for the bathroom vanity, and I think it came out great. The entire frame came out of a single chunk of reclaimed Southern Yellow Pine barn beam, so the color match is pretty good. I’m quite pleased. An exterior oil finish will darken the wood a bit, but won’t detract from the character of the reclaimed wood. And die forged nails will reinforce each of the stretchers and slats (mostly because it will look nice).
Ignore the white pine spacer in the bottom front; that was just for alignment during glue up.
The table top will also be SYP, but from a different board. I just didn’t have enough after cutting around the worst nails and checks and defects to get the wood for the frame, even taking into account the massive cutout for the vessel sink. The color match isn’t perfect, but I’m arranging the boards to make it work.
The small remaining chunk of the beam that went into the frame would have been enough for a lower shelf (slatted and nailed onto the lower stretchers). But upon further reflection, I think having the shelf boards match the tabletop boards will balance things aesthetically.
It’s been tough to find enjoyable workshop time of late. There is some work being done on the house and as cramped as my 12′ x 13′ (3.5m x 4m) workshop is at the best of times, it’s even worse when more than half of it is filled with furniture from other rooms. I’ve got about 5 feet of workbench (at the vise end) and 2 feet of space along the front to move around. I can reach all the tools in my wall cabinet, but it takes a bit of leaning on my tiptoes to get the coping saw. Even so, I’ve a project I need to complete, so I push onward.
Not sure if I’ve ever posted this image of the finished wall cabinet.
The vanity in the downstairs bathroom has always been subpar. It’s internet furniture pressboard bullshit that I bought when I first got the house just needed to make a gross washroom usable on a DIY basis. Now that the whole bathroom is being updated by professionals, I figured I’d tackle making a new vanity that is up to my own specs.
The last few chunks of reclaimed old growth Southern Yellow Pine barn beam would be just enough for the frame and a top. My little bandsaw was instrumental in this; I don’t think hand ripping would have left enough stock. I have officially hit “can’t live without it” status on that tool, for what it’s worth.
In terms of style, I’ve always been fascinated with the “slatted” style of furniture. I think the first time I saw it was a Restoration Hardware media cabinet. But it seems a dreadful waste of material because the slats tend to be decorative (and not structural). But what if they were structural? They’d essentially make a wide board out of a few small sticks (id est, offcuts from the bandsaw): maximum strength with minimum material.
While also hiding the plumbing below.
As an aside (as if my entire collected works weren’t just one massive, frenetic soliloquy), this is the kind of project where a hollow chisel mortiser really expedites things. I couldn’t centralize the mortises for the top the rails or the slats and have mortises of any great substance, so the outer walls of the mortises ended up less than 1/4″ (6mm). So not something where brace and bit boring or chisel chopping is without significant risk of blowing out the whole thing. And when you don’t have material to spare (and can’t afford to scrap the work), a hollow chisel mortiser really shines.
The second of the power tool triumvirate for a small space, hand tool woodworker.
It occurs to me that, even with multiple slats, a piece like this still needs substantial, double shouldered tenons for the top rails and the lower rail. This will increase the bearing surface of the main joints in the structure and should encourage squareness in the overall assembly and a strong frame. The slats themselves can be single shouldered, I think (again, just to use all of the available material). On the lower rails, a tight fit becomes a necessary. So everything gets fettled with a router plane.
Do others use the “over the garbage can” method for storing ready-for-glue up pieces?
I would typically drawbore each joint on something like this, but there really isn’t room for a size of peg that would give any real strength. I think, instead, I’ll use die forged nails (after finish) to lock everything in place. I’m not worried about the glue failing, I don’t think. But some extra reinforcement can’t hurt in a bathroom with wildly-varying humidity.
But I’ll tackle that after I finish the frame. I’ll also talk more about making the top where the sink will sit (this is for a vessel sink).
If anyone asks me what kind of workbench they should build when just getting into woodworking, I have only one answer: a Mike Siemsen-style Naked Woodworker English workbench. The video is an excellent step by step (my only complaint is that it doesn’t show cutting the lap joints on the lower stretchers for the leg assemblies). But more importantly, it is a design that a true beginner with a small set of tools can knock together with a reasonable chance of success.
I have built a few such workbenches. But I’ve noticed that pretty much all of my shop furniture pieces end up in the Naked Woodworker style too. Id est, glue and screw laminating various pieces to create the lap joints and other connections without having to cut any real joinery.
A bandsaw stand in potentia, illustrating the style.
One of the important things about Mike’s design is leaving the top rails a bit proud (shown above), so they can be leveled with a hand plane to form a flat plane to attach the tabletop. This is very useful when using rough construction lumber but still wanting precision in the final piece.
Abrupt segue:
I fully subscribe to the hypothesis that the best woodworking hand tool is a band saw. I can absolutely spit a gauge line with a hand saw (although it has taken practice) and I am able to saw a perfect shoulder with a back saw (with a little bit of chisel paring). But a well tuned band saw just makes things go quicker (at least the cheek part of the cut).
I have the most basic version of a band saw with a coarse (skip tooth) blade, but it can cut as fine of joinery as I need. If I could go back in time, I would have bought this thing so much sooner. And now, it moves around.
Stationary stand seen to the right.
Sometimes I wonder if having a bandsaw will atrophy my hand sawing skills. But then I need to resaw some 16/4 stock and I forget about my previous qualms.
And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Christmas.
I went up north for a quick summer weekend and did something I don’t usually do: peruse the antique shops. This was pretty fruitful, honestly. I found a boarded chest made from 12″ x 7/8″ clear pine which will clean up very nicely. It’s about 24x14x14. It was last used as a toy chest (I know from the several Battleship peg pieces inside it) but it has some signs of old tills. More on that another time.
I also found a nice Disston D7 (I think) hand saw, crosscut. The plate is arrow straight with no kinks that I can see. Even the nib is intact. The only defect (aside from a heavy black patina on the blade that comes from being stored in barn-like conditions) is a small chip off the top horn of the tote. Easily fixed (or, honestly, just sanded smooth and left alone). I’ll do a quick restoration post on that one too in the future.
But the best find (in my opinion) was a wooden jack plane in remarkable condition. It’s stamped with “New York Tool Co.” (which my cursory research showed was a brand used by the Auburn Tool Co in the late second half of the 19th century). It’s 16 inches long and seems to be a No. 12. I didn’t even argue with the sticker price at the antique shop (which was $25).
One tiny check on the toe of the plane.
The strike button on the front of the plane is pristine and there is no mushrooming to speak of on the iron (mushrooming happens from consistent use of a metal hammer or mallet to adjust the depth and lateral adjustment of the iron). There are also no mallet dents on the heel of the plane; just a few shallow checks away from the sole.
It’s honestly a bit silly how nice this thing is.
The tote is fully in tact, with just a couple of knicks showing lighter wood below which are probably just from being in a box bumping into other antique store fare (and not from use). The tote itself is a bit wobbly and just need regluing after 130 years. In fact, the only meaningful patina on the entire plane is on the back of the tote (where the palm of the user would be). If I had mineral spirits and denatured alcohol with me on the trip, I probably could have freshened it up to like new.
That could easily just be grime sticking to the exposed end grain and not patina from use.
The mouth is still tight. Not tight for a jack plane, mind you; tight for any wooden plane. The front of the mouth is crisp and 90 degrees to the sides of the sole. The back of the mouth (behind the iron) is a little chipped but that seems pretty common on wooden soled planes where the bed comes to such a fragile point. A couple swipes with a fine cut file will clean it right up. I’m not even sure the sole has ever been flattened, but it didn’t take much to true it with a fore plane. And there are no splits on the cheeks around the wedge.
Seriously. Look at that crisp mouth on a 130 year old wooden jack plane.
The iron looks pretty much fresh to me; I don’t think it’s ever been reground. There were no shavings caught between the iron and the chip breaker when I pulled the two apart; just a little flaky orange rust. Other than being sharpened a bit out of square, and some camming on the cap iron screw, you’d be hard pressed to prove this thing ever actually saw any real use. There aren’t even any of the usual paint splatters or other stains from being near a workbench.
Those Victorian era prisoners sure knew how to make ’em!
All in all, I have a hard time believing that someone made even a part time living with this tool. It’s just too pristine. It’s possible there was a hobbyist in the late 19th century, perhaps an attorney or accountant, who took pride in the upkeep of his tools, even though he rarely put them to heavy use. But that seems a bit too romantic and hits a bit too close to home.
In any event, it will have a good home with me. Even with occasional use (I’m not giving up my metal planes any time soon), this beauty will probably see more action with me that it did in its youth.
I had in my mind a singular vision. A mini workbench, surrounded by a tray, that sat upon an office desk. Like those perpetual motion clacking ball desk toys. But where one could plane small sticks of wood with a block plane in meditative rhythm. The small curls falling gently into a rimmed collection tray to keep things neat.
I could have sworn such a thing existed. Maybe it was advertised in an old Popular Woodworking issue. It might have been Fine Woodworking or WOOD. But it eluded me.
So I made a prototype. And it turned out great!
As I saw it in my mind.
The bench itself is roughly 1:8 scale. The slab is 12 inches long and 3 inches wide. 1/2 inch thickness would have been to scale, but I bumped it up to 7/8 for stiffness. The wing, which functions as both a tool shelf and a shooting board, is about 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick. The planing stop is 1/2 inch square. For those who care, the entire setup is 19 x 7 x 3.
About the footprint of a large gaming keyboard.
Let’s talk materials for a moment. This is just a prototype, so I used some tight grain Spruce framing lumber from up north. In Vermont, where my parents have a house, you can get stuff that has birdseye pattern and blue streaks but still arrow straight grain. It’s beautiful and a joy to work with.
This stock was a bit more plain, but I think still looks good. The only non-Spruce materials in the piece are the planing stop (red oak) and the base of the tray (1/2 inch birch plywood).
Spruce is rather rigid and dimensionally stable, so a good choice for this.
The workbench legs are 1 1/2 inch x 4 inch x 1 inch posts that are rabbeted (cross grain) into the slab top. The oak planing stop is also rabbeted in. The planing stop actually hides some nails reinforcing the joint between the slab and the front legs. The tool shelf is just brad nailed down to the legs.
To attach the bench to the collection tray, the legs are glued and screwed from the underside of the plywood. The tray itself is banded in 1/2 inch spruce just butt jointed around and glued and nailed on. I stuck on some nonskid furniture pads to the underside so it won’t slide around.
Top view with some blanks.
There is admittedly a practical purpose to this piece. There is a step down on the window sill in my office at work. The larger pots overhang the stepdown and it’s unstable without a spacer that’s level with the main sill and fully support the pot. Each spacer needs to be somewhere between 1/2 and 11/16 but the height varies. This will allow me to fine tune some pine 1 x 3/4 spacers on site.
A full size, modern block plane is probably a bit much for this setup. Perhaps I’ll clean up a slightly smaller vintage block plane from the user pile. We’ll see.
When I make a nicer version in mahogany or walnut, I may do a Basic Projects writeup. But for now, the prototype is rather serviceable.
Back during the prime of the pandemic (early 2021), I took the plunge and bought a benchtop hollow chisel mortiser (an “HCM”). At the time, the Powermatic Benchtop Mortiser was on backorder from Southern Tool (who are really great to work with [not a sponsor]). I’ve always hated boring and chopping mortises by hand. I’m totally totally fine with cutting tenons with hand tools. It’s just the donkey work of mortises that I would love to avoid. And my HCM allows me to do so.
So when it came time to cut some large bridle joints for my new forever workbench (I mean it this time!), I couldn’t help but wonder if I could do it on the HCM. I consider myself to be pretty good at following a line with a panel saw and have cut plenty of large bridle joints that way. But bridle joints are just “open” mortise and tenon joints, after all. So cutting bridles on the HCM should be easy enough with just a little planning. It’s not really intended for this purpose, but it works just fine.
First of all, it really helps if all of your leg blanks are S4S and the same dimensions, within a few shavings at least. That way, you can flip the blank in all directions and use the same fence setting for centering the mortise. It’s not fatal if things aren’t exact, as long as you use a consistent reference edge for the matching legs. But it will slow things down if you need to reset the fence after every flip end over end.
Second, leave your leg blank overlong, so there is some meat to support the temporarily enclosed mortise without blowing out. For wood species that split easily, such as Red Oak, you should probably leave a full inch. These legs are poplar, so 1/2″ was fine.
Thirdly, size your mortise to be no more than 4x (or just under 4x, ideally) the size of the bit you plan to use.
That is a broken auger from another hollow chisel mortiser bit that I use to scoop out waste.
I start by defining the walls of the mortise. Assuming the mortise is centered on the leg, cut about halfway through on a full pass, flip end over end, and cut the rest of the way from the other side. Then, you can spin the leg 180 degrees and repeat the two passes. After four total passes, you have the mortise defined as shown above. Repeat for the other 3 legs until the walls of the mortise are all defined.
Now, reset the fence so you are removing half of the material remaining in the middle part of the mortise. If you’ve sized the bridle joint correctly (i.e., no more than 4x the size of your HCM bit), you only need to reset the fence this once. Remove the material only at the base of the mortise with four plunge cuts, flipping the work as before. The base of the mortise will now be fully established. No need to worry about removing the rest of the waste on the HCM, as you’re about to see.
Like so.
Finally, saw off the extra length on the leg (I use my miter chop saw for big cuts like this, but hand saws are fine too). BAM! You’ve got an open mortise. You may have a small strip of waste holding the inner chunk on. Just snap it off and you’re good.
The waste falls out in two pieces.
If needed, a wide chisel or a medium cut file makes quick work of smoothing any unevenness on the inside of the open mortise. But if your HCM is well set up, this may not be an issue.
Some quick paring work on the walls and the base and this will be joinery ready.
Is this the most efficient way to cut bridle joints? No, not at all. Either a table saw or a band saw works faster and probably better. But I’m still learning to set up my little band saw and I wasn’t confident the cheek cuts wouldn’t wander horribly. Plus I already had the HCM set up for mortising in the lower stretchers so it was quick to move over to this operation.
While it may be a single purpose tool, I believe the HCM is the second most time saving stationary tool for the hand tool woodworker (right after the thickness planer). It’s far quieter than a router or simply chopping the mortise with chisel and mallet, and produces more predictable results. It’s faster than boring and paring out a mortise (whether with a drill press, a hand drill or a brace) and makes only the same amount of mess. All of which makes it ideal for small space woodworking.
To be clear, you don’t need a hollow chisel mortiser as a hand tool woodworker. But if I have a batch of mortises to knock out, odds are that’s where you’ll find me.
Another year on the Gregorian calendar has passed and I’m back in the workshop. As I always say, “ABCD – Always be Carpen them Diems!” And today, like every other New Year’s Day, is no different.
My first project of the year is making a panel saw from “scratch”. Those quotes are doing some pretty heavy lifting, as the plate is taken from a 26″ vintage Simonds 10 TPI crosscut hand saw. I’m not in the mood to cut new teeth today. The plate is in very good shape but the handle was a mess. Clearly an aftermarket job, the slot for the saw plate was at like 10 degrees to the handle and it made for terrible hang.
So first I made a new tote. There are a ton of good tutorials on the yutubs about this, so I’m not going to offer any real pointers here. However, a small oscillating spindle sander (I have the handheld one from Wen, which seems to be a knockoff of the Triton model) makes the job a lot quicker. I don’t have a band saw, so bringing the outline of the tote into flat on the OSS (instead of by hand with rasps and files) is a godsend. Especially on quartersawn hard maple.
Once the outside was shaped, I took my cues from the BTC Hardware Store Saw and busted out the trim router with a chamfer bit. Once the hard arrises are sanded down, it’s just as comfortable as full rounds. Plus, the intersection of the chamfers made a cool lamb’s tongue-like feature at the bottom of the tote, without having to do an actual lamb’s tongue.
When I make the next hand saw tote, if I use this pattern again, I will lighten the chamfer along the front (seen left, where it meets the saw plate). That heavy chamfer, as cool as it looks, nearly overlapped with the top saw nut and left a fragile edge that will probably break off soon.
Next I had to modify the plate to fit the tote. That vertical dotted line on the pattern to the right of the saw nuts shows where the plate seats into the tote. Problem is, the sourced plate did not have a straight line at the heel. That means it’s angle grinder time. I just use a scrap of plywood as a fence (learned that one from Pask Makes) and go to town. I also nibbed off the corner at the heel.
I am aware the guard is off. This operation doesn’t work with the guard on.
The angle grinder leaves the plate rather work hardened at this point. Files still work, but you really have to draw file to get down to fresh steel. I pop it in the saw vise and use the same jig for jointing the teeth. It’s important this be straight and true so it seats nicely in the tote.
You can see the reshaped heel, before a bit of rounding.
I didn’t get pictures of it, but I next cut the slot in the tote for the plate. You can freehand this (like the guy who last owned the saw did), but three is a better way. Just clamp to a flat surface (like a benchtop) another panel saw with a thinner plate and a fine set to the bench with a spacer underneath that centers the cut. Then draw the tote, flat against the bench and cut the slot as deep as you can. You can then finish the cut by hand in the vise, as the portion of the slot you already cut will guide the saw the rest of the way. Lee Valley has an excellent guide on this. If the slot is slightly off center (mine was by about 1/32″), just plane down the thicker side.
Now it’s time for drilling holes.
Now came the part I was dreading. When re-handling panel saws in the past, I used the existing handle as a pattern and located the saw nuts exact where they had been on the previous tote. For this, I was starting fresh and that meant drilling new holes in the plate. The spring steel plate. With a cheap benchtop drill press.
I had previously drilled 1/16″ pilot holes through the tote and bored the initial recesses for the saw nuts. So I started by clamping assembled saw onto the drill press table and locating the 1/16″ holes, which I then drilled through the plate. I then set the handle aside, recentered the drill press on each pilot hole in the plate, and clamped down the plate to the drill press table. You do not want a spinning hand saw plane. Then I just worked my way up from 1/16″ to 7/32″ incrementally until there were three 7/32″ holes in the plate. In truth, I cooked about four 7/32″ drill bits. It’s just too much for my little drill press to handle. But they were cheap drill bits (scavenged from various box store sets).
All that was left to finish the tote was drilling out the saw nut holes (9/32″ for the slotted nuts and 1/4″ for the medallion and bolts) and tweaking the depth of the recesses. I think I set the recesses in a little deep, but it works. Some boiled linseed oil really makes the quartersawn holographics of the hard maple pop.
Medallion side.Nut side.
I still need to hack off some of the toe to get the plate itself down to about 19″ of tooth line. That, in my experience, makes the plate stiff enough to not need a half back or magnetic guide for basic joinery. Plus it gets rid of that kink that always develops about 5-6″ from the toe of every 26″ hand saw. And, of course, that will allow it to fit in the toolbox.
The hang of the saw is a bit toe heavy, which makes me think it should be a medium rip (8-10 TPI). I find that useful for crosscutting wider, thicker stock on the saw bench and still able to rip efficiently at the vise. A saw like that is a workhorse for my travel toolbox. Once the BLO dries, it’s time to carpe some more diems and reshape the teeth.
But, for now, Happy New Year and I hope you find some time in the shop soon. Thanks for being a reader and stay tuned for some new and exciting things this year.
Around these parts (Fairfield County, Connecticut), it’s warming up. This time of year, I’m finally able to drag my workbench outside and get real some woodworking done. My outside workbench, now with new slab and tool tray, is in fact getting quite a workout. I can get a bunch done with just a pair of holdfasts and a few clamps to secure the work. Proper vises are great. But they are not absolutely necessary if you’re not cutting English style dovetails.
Nice to see the slab and tray matching so well, though.
One of my goals for this year is mastering tapered tenon joinery for staked furniture. Or at least becoming facile with it. I have experimented with reamer and tapered tenon cutter before, but in situations where strength was not a primary concern. Chairs and stools are higher leverage projects (literally and figuratively) than credenza bases and side tables.
So with a nice weekend, I might as well make some chips on the lawn with a drawknife and spokeshave to prepare some leg stock for refinement. I resolved to take the tapers further than I usually do off the drawknife. I also spent more time with the spokeshave before introducing the tapered tenon cutter. I’m not sure it was faster than doing more rough work, but the results are more consistent than my prior work.
Like so.
These legs are ash, which was split off from a small timber that checked badly while it was drying I’d have preferred the leg blanks be closer to 2″ square, but you work with that you’ve got (these are 1.65″ square). I’ll add some stretchers between the pairs of legs for extra rigidity.
Aligning the legs for the eventual stretcher.
I am also working through some old boards, some from as early as 2014 that I’ve been dragging from shop to shop all these years. Among that is a red oak 2×12 (nominal size 1.75 x 11.25). It’s about 65 inches long and I could never bring myself to cut it down into smaller boards. So as I figure out how to be precise with compound angled joinery, I might as well make another low bench. The top had cupped and bowed pretty badly so by the time it was flattened, it was only 1.5″ thick. You may not think half an inch of red oak means that much, but it does. This is a sitting bench, not a low workbench, so the little bit of flex means added comfort. But if this were to live in the shop, it would need a 2×4 glued and screwed to the underside for extra support.
Ideally, the top would be thicker than the legs.
I do all my boring and reaming by hand with a brace, so it’s much harder to overshoot an angle or a depth with the reamer that way. But it’s still important to check your angles and go slow. Doing so will ensure the exit holes on the top (ie, visible) of the seat are of consistent size and shape. In the end, some irregularities aren’t fatal to the structural soundness of the piece. But looking nice is important too.
So this is a very long way of saying, if it’s nice outside, I will drag a workbench outside and get a tan while doing some rougher work. It’s harder to rake shavings off the lawn than to sweep them up off the floor.
I’m unsure if this counts as a properfixgasm, but I finally got around to framing out and paneling a closet that for a long time was hidden behind the old wall panels. But let’s assume for a moment the closet was already framed out and paneled. Then putting some shelving in definitely counts as a fixgasm.
Yes, I have mostly black and yellow branded tools. No, they aren’t a sponsor.
This closet was, up until this very day, a receptacle for the detritus of the workshop. Clamps, offcuts and various oddments were piled up, leaning against the wall. So with floor to ceiling storage (these metal rack units work great for closet shelving), I have now emptied two (!) different smaller storage units that take up floor space in the overflow room. Getting rid of those smaller storage units will allow me to move things around a bit, which will free up more room.
And then it cascades until I might finally create a direct path from the handtool shop to the thickness planer in the overflow room.
If you’ve been here more than once, you know I’m a hand tool guy. To be clear, I do have power tools that complement primarily hand tool work. My lunchbox thickness planer does the donkey work once there is a tried and true reference face and a squared reference edge off the jointer plane. A double bevel compound miter saw quickly cuts stock to rough length. And you can pry my benchtop hollow chisel mortiser from my cold, dead hands. I also have a small drill press (that at this point is used exclusively for accurate drawboring), a collection of battery-powered DIY tools (a drill driver, a circular saw and a random orbital sander), and a trim router kit for when I’ve truly given up on things.
But doing hand work efficiently is more than just leveraging power when, as and if it makes sense. When there are multiple parts to cut (there always are), it helps to think like a one-person assembly line. Each step in the assembly line is a repeated task. Sure, variety is a the spice of life. But just like a blade and fence setup at the table saw, you want to set it once, do all the cuts, then move on. It’s the same thing for body mechanics at the workbench.
So let’s talk about tapered octagon legs by hand.
The first two tapers on each piece (on opposite sides) go pretty quickly in the face vise. If you work to opposite sides, the other profile is still square and therefore easily held in the vise (in my case, a leg vise). Do that eight times.
If you have a twin screw vise that can hold tapers securely, great. Stay at the face vise. But I don’t, so I move to the tail vise. Pinched between the dogs, the legs sit flush to the bench on the tapers I had just planed to make a square taper on all faces. Do that eight times.
And then you have this.
Now lay out the octagon(s). If you have a lathe and will taper across the entire length, you’re nearly done at the workbench. But I don’t have a lathe and I like to start the taper where the round tenon ends, so in addition to the octagon at the foot, I also lay out an octagon on the top where the tenon will go. A cradle jig that goes in the tail vise holds the work and I taper from square down to octagon at the foot and also from square down to an octagon at the top. Do that thirty-two times (16 long tapers and 16 short tapers).
And you end up with something like this.
That short taper makes it easier to center the round tenon cutter I have for my drill driver, btw. I use a 1 1/2″ tenon cutter, but that’s just a rough cut. With chisel, spokeshave and rasp I take that round tenon down to 1 3/8″ to ensure it’s centered on the blank (it rarely is straight off the tenon cutter). It also helps to bore a 1 3/8″ hole in some hardwood (or at least wood that is harder than your blank) with the bit you’ll use for the mortise to test the fit now and again. Do this four times.
Almost done now! Yes, that’s a Mets colored Nalgene. #LFGM
Finally, I go back to the corners (where they were tapered from square to octagon) and plane in the full tapered octagon from the tenon to the foot. I find taking the facets down evenly first (so the facet is parallel from the tenon to the foot), and then incrementally increasing the facet width at the top near the tenon by counting strokes, works best. Again, if you taper the full length, this step is unnecessary.
The finished leg.
It goes without saying, but I did one leg first to work out the process and then batched out the other three with the process described above. Are they perfect? Of course not. But we are not machines (and should not strive to be machines). And I enjoy the hand made aesthetic far more than machine-wrought perfection.
Okay, I lied. I made a second one to test the process. I’m actually at step 2 for the other two legs.
There is a great rhythm one can get into when batching out parts at the bench. Hehe, batching.
The Apartment Woodworker 