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+-- Thread: Grain direction for tapered legs (/showthread.php?tid=7162331)
Grain direction for tapered legs - sroxberg - 12-07-2015
I am now making a Shaker night stand. The legs are 1 1/8" square at the top and the two inside faces are tapered so that the bottom of the leg is 3/4" x 3"4 an inch.
I have some 8/4 Cherry that I'm making the legs from and the boards are fairly wide which will give me some flexibility to control the grain direction if that is advisable.
I know it can be very important on curved/carved legs.
Should I worry about grain direction on these legs and if yes, how should I attempt to get the grain flowing? I was considering having the grain run from corner to corner thinking that would give me straight grain on all faces.
What say the Woodnetters?
Re: Grain direction for tapered legs - Martin S. - 12-07-2015
Grain from corner to corner when looking at the cross section is preferred.
Re: Grain direction for tapered legs - MichaelMouse - 12-08-2015
sroxberg said:
I am now making a Shaker night stand. The legs are 1 1/8" square at the top and the two inside faces are tapered so that the bottom of the leg is 3/4" x 3"4 an inch.
I have some 8/4 Cherry that I'm making the legs from and the boards are fairly wide which will give me some flexibility to control the grain direction if that is advisable.
I know it can be very important on curved/carved legs.
Should I worry about grain direction on these legs and if yes, how should I attempt to get the grain flowing? I was considering having the grain run from corner to corner thinking that would give me straight grain on all faces.
What say the Woodnetters?
Continuous grain from top to bottom. As much as is possible. Let the taper sides have shorter runs, they're not under load.
Then, mark and cut so that the two legs visible at any given time will present either quarter or face grain ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS. I've remade a few legs because I forgot this part.
When I made the first of those stands some forty years ago, SWMBO looked at me as if I were crazy, tapering to 9/16. I sat on the top (at ~180#), and offered to stand. She grudgingly granted my assertion out of fear of injury, I'm sure. The two I know the whereabouts of are still intact.
Re: Grain direction for tapered legs - Paul K. Murphy - 12-08-2015
I think this matter has been given far too much importance.
I don't think it's very important. I think it can rise to the level of being important, but I wouldn't use the word "very."
I think it really matters in context. If we take, say for example, a Hepplewhite sideboard, the grain of the wood really is the main feature. There are other cases where grain direction matters as well, but in my view this concept has been way overthought. There are, and can be, examples where grain direction is important like that, but I don't think of it with the same urgency as this latest fad seems to be headed.
There is still a place; still a role to be played by good, ordinary, well wrought cabinetwork. In most cases, if you do a good job, you've built a good cabinet. My view is at odds with the latest insane orthodoxy.