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The first thing I am going to work on today is the legs. I have got this ten foot piece of eight quarter alder; it is about seven inches wide. It will be perfect when you get two legs out of each cut by cutting it in half. In order to start working with this I have really got to cut it down, it is way too big and just too heavy. So, I usually use my circular saw for this type of task. You want to make sure when you cut this you do not just let the fall off, literally fall to the ground.
What is that going to do is actually pull off a large chunk of the wood at the end of the cut, because you have not had the chance to actually sever the fibers before the weight of the piece pulls it down to the ground. So, the easiest thing that I find to do is to set up a couple extra stands. I have my little roller stands here and they are set about in an eight of an inch below the bottom surface of the wood. So that when I cut this, it will drop. And it is only going to drop about eight an inch,
That is not enough to break the wood and tear it out but it is enough to support it, and stop it from pinching the blade and stop it from actually tearing out. It is much safer, and I got much cleaner cut that way so I am going to probably lot this off at about 30 inches giving me about three quarters of an inch extra space so I can trim it down the size later.
All right, so each one of these boards now represents one leg. We just need to repeat the width, glue those two pieces together and then wave the thickness that we are after for a nice sturdy mission style leg.
What I am going to do actually mark the board at three and a quarter inches, at an extra quarter inch is going to give me breathing room that I need. In case there is, any error in my cut I am probably will screw something up. It is nice to know I have got an extra quarter inch to work with. But of course you need a board that is wide enough to accommodate that extra, so keep that in mind when you are you buying your lumber.
I am actually going to cut this guy down on the ban saw. I find that to be the easiest, simplest way to deal with these large, heavy timbers. If you use the table saw, perfectly fine, I would recommend joining one edge first. Make sure the board sits stable on a flat surface and go ahead and push it through. Just be very careful, make sure you have splitter installed on the table.
You could use a circular saw, just make sure you have got straight edge and everything is clamp and secure. You can even use a jig saw if you have one and you do not have any of this others tools, you can certainly use that to cut this down. But however you do it, just be careful and make sure you give yourself a little bit more than three inches because we are going to need able to plain everything down is smooth that out later on and our finish thickness is three by three.
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Using the ban saw I cut the rough leg stocked up, three and a quarter inches wide.
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Now I have just finish jointing one face on each leg half. It is time to glue these guys together.
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Yeah! Baby! Put on that glue. That is what I am talking about. Put on lots of glue.
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Spread that glue nice and even. Oh. Yeah. Get those leg halves together. Tighten down those clamps. Add some extra clamps of you are feeling saucy.
So just a quick dose of reality, I was looking at all of my leg halves and I notice one that has a really, really big knot, that is actually, in fact pretty deep hole as well. So this could be a stability issue. Aside from the fact that it just looks ugly, I am not going to be able put on this on my leg unless I can do something with it. So, the key is to fill it with the epoxy so that it actually is stable and I am going to actually face this to the inside. It is going to be inside of my leg joint and you will never see it, but it is still stable.
So let me get some epoxy over here. I already had the resin, I just added the hardener. And incidentally this little Dixie cups, there is something really cold but Nicole got me. I think we got, “How many?” 600? A bag of 600 for about five bucks, that is a pretty darn good done deal.
You won’t feel bad about throwing them away. So, when I get this good and mixed, I am going to pour the epoxy into the hole. Give it a chance to see Ben. And I am going to let this sit overnight. And tomorrow I clean it up, make sure it is nice and flat, flush with the surface. That should be enough. And then I can glue my leg together. Problem solved.
Okay and I just—was about to go in the house for the night and let my epoxy dry overnight and then I realize “Oh-oh” my hole does go all the way through and my epoxy is leaking.
Generally, what I like to do is just use tape, blue tape is fine, if you got regular masking tape, you can use that too but just plug up the hole. Now that I have wasted epoxy, it is all good. That should be good enough. ”Do not tell anybody”.
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After 68 hours I removed the leg from the clamps. And I forgot to remove the glue before it set ups, so now I am paying the price. Since these legs still have a lot of extra stock, I am not concern about the damage I am doing with the scrapper. But removing the dried glue is an essential step to keeping my adjoiner and plainer blades in good shape.
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