Thread: how to duplicate tapered legs

To put it in a nutshell you have to turn the larger diameter at one end, the smaller diameter at the other then turn a straight line between the 2. It does not get much more simple, especially if you have a tool rest long enough so that you don't have to move it during the process.

similar to above but to expand a bit ....

i turn my cylinder to the largest diameter first ....

i draw the leg on thin mdf and measure and mark several spots along it (about 3/4 to 7/8 of the length of my tool rest), transfer the marks to my cylinder and cut the marks with two parting tools, a 1/4 inch wide one down to about 3/16 oversize and a very thin one (i think about 3/32" wide) to 1/16 oversize (and a galbert caliper although any caliper would do) ...

i go a bit under 1/16 inch oversize ... i work from the thick end to the thin end ... i use a steady to avoid getting an oval shape, particularly as it starts to thin out and use a skew to turn the straight line between marks ... once i have all legs to 1/16inch oversize i put them back on and finish them ... (if i have to put a mortise in them, i do that at the stage of it being a cylinder before i turn the shape)

sorry if some of that is a bit basic

good luck

regards david

I draw the angle on the bed as a sight guide too

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

egg 006.jpg

routers and lathes go together well in many instances! your situation would be a great application.

My lathe has been built with special set ups in mind but for straight tapers you lathe could be easily adapted temporarily with a few pieces of material.

You will need to attach a flat board to the ways of your lathe to serve as a work table. this will be removed when not being used so your lathe can be used conventionally.

You will need to construct a "c" shaped bracket that will hold the router in the vertical position and at the right height off the work surface to cut your rotating stock.

the bottom front of the bracket will become the depth stop

screw a board to the top of the work surface to serve as a template at the desired angle.

if you wish you can rough the stock to the approximate shape first

roughing cuts with the router are ALWAYS climb cuts. (prevents blowouts and digging in)

finish cut is conventional.

Have fun!

make up a negative template from MDF

use the template to check for consistency between each leg.

REMEMBER
if the legs are for a table, the inconsistency -- leg to leg -- needs to be pretty large before anyone will notice

Thanks everyone!, Oreos, I was looking for something like you have suggested. I have a better idea of where to look and things to try now.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Sebastiaan76

Hi all,
I'm fairly green when it comes to turning, but have a few projects coming up that are going to require turned tapered legs. Not too much in the way of decoration, beads etc, simply tapered round legs that are bigger at the top and smaller at the bottom.

I'm contemplating buying Woodfasts Copy turn attachemnt - Woodfast Machinery Co. (Aust.) Pty. Ltd. -
However I don't think it will fit my Ledacraft mini lathe ( which is 127mm from bed to centre height, and that attachment required a minimum 143mm ).

Question: Other than total skill ( which i don't have ), how else can I achieve consistent duplicate legs? I'm playing around with a jig where a router slides over a template using a pattern bit, but in some of my testing, it seems a bit crazy and dangerous to have the router going over the wood as it's turning, and the whole thing just seems cumbersome and likely to have the router bite in and damage the timber, possibly the bit and scare the crap out of me in the process.

Keen to know if there is some simple jig, or method that I can get pretty much perfect duplicate tapered turned legs. I'm just not game to go to this extreme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he3CDqJhBNY

How do others go about churning out large batches of the exact same legs?

may I suggest that your time and dollars is best invested in P R A C T I C E at the lathe.

turning blanks - in the form of construction pine from Bunnings cost almost nothing
by the time you have docked a 3m length of 70 x 45 into 6 x 0.5m blanks and turned each one down into a taper you'll have incurred a total expense of less than $10 AND increased your skill and confidence levels immeasurably.

As Ian wrote, make a template. This becomes even more important when there are curves to duplicate.

Here is an example from a chair I built a couple of years ago (from my website) ..

Below are the four cylinders turned for the legs. Note that the ends are left square. These will act as reference for working to square when the mortices are added.





Back to the lathe. The cylinders receive markings at approximately 25mm (1”) spacing with the thickness of the leg at that position.





Here are the turned legs with their depths of cut completed. The temptation is resisted to complete a leg before moving on. It makes for greater consistency to do just one task at a time.





Finally the waste was removed from between the depth cuts, and the legs faired with a sanding pad.





Four completed legs. The template is used to check the profile of each.





Here are the legs alongside the chair …




The link for the article is http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furnitu...ngTheLegs.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by ian

may I suggest that your time and dollars is best invested in PRACTICE at the lathe.

turning blanks - in the form of construction pine from Bunnings cost almost nothing
by the time you have docked a 3m length of 70 x 45 into 6 x 0.5m blanks and turned each one down into a taper you'll have incurred a total expense of less than $10 AND increased your skill and confidence levels immeasurably.

I'm so glad you said that, it seems to me that routers and lathes go together like beer and marshmallow.

Beer and marshmallow I can sort of see going together.

Sort of ...



lathe and router ??

to my mind very very advanced techniques for special applications like fluting.

Definitely not a roughing tool, nor a tool for a beginner

and from the posted video, it seems an awfully slow process

Originally Posted by springwater

Originally Posted by ian
may I suggest that your time and dollars is best invested in PRACTICE at the lathe.

turning blanks - in the form of construction pine from Bunnings cost almost nothing

by the time you have docked a 3m length of 70 x 45 into 6 x 0.5m blanks and turned each one down into a taper you'll have incurred a total expense of less than $10 AND increased your skill and confidence levels immeasurably.

I'm so glad you said that,

Thank you

[QUOTE=ian;1928228]may I suggest that your time and dollars is best invested in P R A C T I C E at the lathe.

Or at least just TRY one for starters.
It is the next easiest thing to turning a cylinder, and you do not need any fancy router attachments.

Originally Posted by Sebastiaan76

Keen to know if there is some simple jig, or method that I can get pretty much perfect duplicate tapered turned legs. I'm just not game to go to this extreme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he3CDqJhBNY

This is awesome

In the posted video I had 200 of them to do. they are dried oak miniture practice golf club handles. they are fourteen inches long. from square3/4" stock. 5/8" on the big end and 7/16" on the small end with a 3/8" dowell turned on the small end for 1 1/16" they had to be very precise to fit a pre molded handle. The customer had posted on a couple turning sites to get them done and was excused by overpriced stuffed shirts or complaints about difficulty. I did the whole job from scrap wood in a day and still had the evening for a date. I made enough for two days work at my day job and enjoyed it. Why the put downs? Because I don't turn conventionally? I had only one of my blanks end up in the burn pile. they had to finish off +or-.010" of dimension in diameter on the handle and .oo5 on the dowel portion and +or-.032 on lengthwise dim. I guess I would like to see a video from one of the detractors here do just two of them to spec in 5 minutes. there is a reason I have gotten certain jobs over the years, this is one of them.