The proper way to cut wood for table legs

Nice illustration. They call this rift sawn, yes?

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

This is way too advanced for me, Gary.

I’m still working on getting them the same length!

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Gizmo – Rift sawing is similar to quarter sawn.

The top is plain sawn
The bottom left is rift sawn and bottom right is quartersawn

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Yes. This is what you did by cutting on the angle?

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

Good example Gary.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Thanks Gary.

-- Dick Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1

Very cool Gary. Resawing is hard enough with just a hand saw. Thanks for making it even harder. :^)

-- Eric at http://adventuresinwoodworking.com

Having rift sawn (or sometimes called riff) lumber is important for curved legs, like cabriolet legs. Otherwise you can get some dramatically different grain patterns on your legs.

-- Mike - http://inquisitivewoodworker.blogspot.com/

Well explained Gary.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

Gary, I can’t seem to get your pictures to load, although I am able to see the rift/QS/flat sawn diagram. Couldn’t see the plane pictures either. Mystifying.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Great tip, I don’t think I gave the grain much thought before.

-- Tom D

Douglas – I don’t understand why not. They are all on photobucket. If you do a right click and and select properties does is say photobucket?

The other picture is a direct link to a website.

I have had the problem on some pages before and shutting down all browsers and starting them again fixed it.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Gary,
I’ll try the restart, but the only thing that shows up on the LJ page is a dot. Even the links in my e-mail notifier of your projects fail to load at photobucket. Obviously others are seeing things. Maybe you could PM me the links. I really want to figure out how you joined that plan sole!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

You say it is simple bur what a difference it makes the way they are cut. A precious addition to my knowledge. Thanks
Sharad

-- patanjali

Hi Gary,

Good job in pointing that out!

Now, about that picture…

You cut up a perfectly good tree to show us that?

Well illustrated, I almost understand. LOL

I guess the pieces between the rift sawn boards are where shims come from, huh?

All kidding aside, a very helpful post!

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

huh? :)
That’s what I wanted to say… but decided not to!

Thanks for the great tip Gary!

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I buy my dimensional lumbers at the big box stores, but I would sort through all the piles and look for the pieces that happens to be quarter sawn, buy it and save it. This reminds me of what the Lumberjocks had to do to get the perfect 2×4 for the 2008 challenge.

-- Thuan

Gary,

You forgot to mention an easy way to get the legs laid out this way!

Take a piece of posterboard and cut out a square (sized according to the necessary dimensions for the legs). Now lay the posterboard onto the endgraind of your oversized leg blank and arrange it so that the grain you see in the square cutout runs diagonally from one corner to the opposite corner. Then trace the shape of that square onto the stock. Cut accordingly with your tablesaw, setting the blade to match one of the sides (or with whatever your tool of choice is…).

-- Ethan, http://www.merganserwoodworks.com, http://greystonegreen.blogspot.com/

Great example Gary.

Good to also mention about the arts and crafts legs that are really mitered quarter sawn pieces to only show the grain face on the right hand boards of your photos. This is when the want to show white oak rays on all four sides.

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon

Gary, very interesting. This simple example illustrates a lot of different things and will remind people to think about wood grain and orientation a lot more. I haven’t done anything with legs yet, but I probably wouldn’t have thought of this. Great post.

-- Dust collectors suck.