Thread: Tapered Table legs

Most commonly done with a tapering jig on the table saw.

eg: http://www.finewoodworking.com/how-t...nd-faster.aspx

Or you can cut the taper with a bandsaw and clean up with a hand plane.

This is how I did mine on a Festool CMS table saw

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f58/tapering-jig-cms-189383

It has a sliding table to which the jig was attached. As near as I can tell the tapering jig must slide past the saw blade - I couldn't figure out any other way of doing it. On a "proper" TS you could make a sled that runs in both mitre channels - that will do the same thing.

Thanks everyone. Like everything easy when you see it done and explained.

Many thanks
Kerry

Hi Kerry,
My normal method for tapering legs is to use my jointer. This method gives a very gentle curve to the taper AND leaves a 'foot'.
If you have access to a jointer you might want to look at my thread creatively titled 'tapering legs on a jointer' ....?
A hall table made this way is also shown late in the thread 'chair design 101'
fletty

Ah, now this is a wickedly good idea fletty, and I think (without looking at your thread yet) that I can see how it would work. Simply lift up the back end onto a block (maybe clamp it into a simple jig) and do ever increasingly longer passes until the surface can support itself - then finish the length?

Very keen on this idea because it is an unknown fact that I am the forum champion of tapered anything off the jointer - don't even need a jig.

Close, but especially with the segmented cutter, the entire taper is done in a single pass.
Basically, you drop the in feed table by (say) 10mm, fix a block on the infeed table for a start point that ensures the length of the untapered portion, fix a block on the out feed table as a stop point that ensures the length of the foot. It is very quick and, if done in 2 passes with the second pass being only a skim cut, the leg is virtually finished straight off the jointer.
After cutting the blanks, you can taper a leg in only a few minutes.
fletty