Log Furniture legs

[TJH]

How do you make accurate cuts on the legs of Log Furniture so that the chair/bench does not wobble?

[thecfarm]

Didn't someone just have a suggestion on that?Seems like they put it on their sawmill and sawed the legs off all on the same level.A guy at work makes a few pieces and he will try it out.Welcome to the forum.

[TJH]

Yeah, someone made that suggestion, but I dont have access to a sawmill. I was wondering how someone without that tool would do it.

[Ianab]

Cut them as close as you can with a precision tool like a chainsaw and then sneak up on them with a really course grit on the belt sander.

Otherwise you could use a router mounted on a bridge between 2 boards. That also works for planing the tops of tables. No reason that your couldn't flip the table over and plane all the legs off level also.

I mount my router on the sawmill frame to do this, but no reason why you couldn't make a jig / frame out of timber and ply to achieve the same thing.

Cheers

Ian

[Jim_Rogers]

Insert all the legs into the table and sit it upright.
Check for wobble......
Trim all the legs if you want the bottom of them to be flush with the floor.
To do this place a small block of wood or ruler next to the leg flush with the floor or on your workbench and then flush with the workbench and trace a line around the each leg equal to the top of the block.

Like this:


Hope that helps.

Jim Rogers

[TexasTimbers]

Great suggestion Jim. I would just add that some concrete floors are so unlevel as to render the legs "a little off" when you move the piece to its final home, so make sure that when you use this method you ensure that you are on a level surface, as even 1/16" difference on caddy-cornered legs will result in 1/8" and will render it wobbly.
Better yet, if possible, make the marks where the piece will be.

[hayton1960]

When I do chairs seats I do similar to Jims drawing, but dont forget to check your table top is level across and along (if thats important to you that is ) I prefer to scribe (draw) the cutting line with a block of 4x2 (on its side) as its more stable than a ruler on edge. I use a flat sided carpenters pencil and place the block alongside then scribe all round each leg. I rest on a manufactured 3 foot by 2 foot, 2 inch thick concrete paving slab, well flat enough for my purposes. If there is a bit of a wobble I use various small wedges to get it immovable and level (I sight the mortar lines on the adjacent walls, dont bother with a bubble ruler)
If your furniture is bigger use a cast iron table top on a saw, or set up 2 level steel temporary "I" joists with wedges or something-be inventive When I trim off (with japanese shark saw) I always chamfer the cut edges with a chisel, it prevents splitting off of end grain if the chair is slid across the ground in use. Theres some pictures of it in my gallery, cant get them into the thread as yet though:D
Hope this helps