# How I taper table legs on the Planer...



## Oneal-Woodworking (Apr 14, 2013)

Materials required for this jig should all be readily available by digging through your trash / scrap bin. 

You will NOT need any 't-track' or special clamps. :no:

That money can be saved and spent on dog food or beer (or both). 





The piece of plywood that makes up the base of this jig is about 16" x 36" x 11/16" (or so) and this is its third set of legs in this 'size' that it has got to do so far. 

I should have no issues getting another 3 or 4 sets of 'angles' out of it before needing to ditch it and cut a new piece of scrap to size... :thumbsup:







I start with something like this: (pay attention to the lines as those are fairly important and very helpful in setting up the jig properly - You want to draw these lines on your work pieces as well until you have this concept completely figured out)










Once I got the initial angle set on my jig for the legs - I went ahead and cut the flutes first. (In my case the flutes show me where to STOP with the planer so I want to do that first)

The flutes are similar to the tapers in that I cut them on all 4 legs at the same time.










Cut all 4 and rotate, Cut all 4 again and rotate. Simple...










Once that was done I loaded all 4 legs up in the planer jig and cut down to my lines.










Once you hit your lines make a note of your planer thickness setting - Rotate material 1/4 turn - Back off however much you 'need' on the planer and slowly work back to the setting you made a 'note' of... Those two sides of all 4 legs are GOING to be the same taper so long as you stop at the same setting on your planer. If you drew the lines on your work pieces you will see this very clearly...










If you draw lines where you need them and half way understand how a planer works (it cuts from the TOP down and wants to make things 'flat') then this really is not a difficult thing to do. 

I spent right about 2 hours tonight on this stuff to do my flutes, set and adjust my taper jig (Twice) and cut all my tapers. 

Guessing that at least 30 minutes out of that was spent playing with the girls. :smile:













This is a closer look at my 'out of the planer' results that I have to sand now:










:huh:


A little closer look:










:huh:




I did stick fresh blades on the machine today as it badly 'needed' them but I made NO special adjustments to any angles to get this surface finish on the wood. These blades got the factory angle done on them (with the exception of the hollow grind) at the fastest grit possible with a Tormek. ('just off the truing tool' grit) No polishing and no very fine grits used...


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

If you only had a bench top planer to work with would it be easier to use a table saw?


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## TrevortdogR (Feb 1, 2013)

This is would have been a great way for large legs of my frame & panel hutch. Thanks for posting this and something to remember in the future.


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