Making 12 More Legs!

I started making the 12 legs for the 3 end tables. These are basically the same as the ones I made for the coffee table, but they are a little longer in overall length. Part of the additional length is due to the fact that the post of the leg is 5" (instead of 3" on the coffee table legs) to accommodate a drawer.

Here is a picture of the leg blanks, milled to 3" by 3", but not yet cut to length:


Once they were all cut to length, I used a cardboard template of the leg, and transferred it to two adjacent sides of a leg blank. If there is a knot or deviation you want to avoid, many times that can be accomplished by laying out the template correctly. Next step is to cut the mortises into two sides:



A mortise chisel is used to cut a 1/4" square hole. The first cut is made, then the leg is advanced about 3/16", then another cut is made, and so on til the mortise is finished. Here's a cleared picture, with the wood chips brushed away:



What do you do with 12 roughed out legs? Get out the rasp, get out the files, the hard work begins now!



A closeup of the roughed out legs: