Leg Guide Pegs

The next thing I did on the legs was to drill holes for guide pins. This isn’t strictly necessary, but it will help temporarily hold the legs together while I do other work on them and will also help align them when I go to do the final assembly. I started by drilling the hold in my template, one at the top and two at the bottom. I have seen people do more pegs but I thought this would be enough.

Before drilling the holes I made sure that I marked all the leg pieces with which leg they go to, left or right, and which layer they are, inside or outside. In theory if you are very accurate in drilling the holes the pieces should be interchangeable, but I am not going to take that chance. I used this template to mark the holes on the 3/4” center layer of the legs and drilled these holes all the way through. I used a Forstner bit for this which gives a nice clean hole with a flat bottom which will help for they areas where I don’t want to drill all the way through.

Next, I put the middle layer I just drilled on top of the outside layer and used the drill bit to mark the location of the holes.

I drilled the bottom two holes all the way through since there is that small outside ankle layer that will cover them. The top hole I only drilled part of the way through since the hole would be see if I went all he way through. Next I used the middle layer to mark the inside layer. When you do this, remember to flip the middle layer over so the surfaces are together the same way they will be when it’s assembled. As I said earlier, if everything was measured perfectly this wouldn’t make a difference, but I prefer no to take that chance. Just like the outside layer the top hole on the inside layer should not go all the way through, but the bottom two can since they will be covered by another small ankle piece.

I drilled the bottom holes into the outside ankle piece so it could be pinned in place, but the inside ankle layer is so thin, I chose not to drill the holes in it.

Once all the holes were drilled I measured the depth of  the holes and cut dowel pins for each hole.

Leg Structure Part 3

 

In my last post I showed how I cut out the three main pieces of each leg. In this post I will cover a few more of the details of the leg body.

The first thing thing that needs to be done is to cut the point off the middle and inside layers of the leg, leaving only the outside full length. I did this by simply measuring the length and then cutting it off on a miter saw.

Next, two small layers of the ankle need to be made. The outside layer, on the left, is made out of 1/2” plywood. The inside layer, on the right, is only 1/4” thick so I made it from a piece of MDF. I could have cut these on the router table like the other layers, but they are pretty simple shapes so I just traced them from the template, and cut them on the table saw and miter saw. For the rounded end I made a rough cut on a band saw and then finished it on the drum sander.