Trimming the Legs to Final Length

2009.07.03

I started today with cutting the glued-up leg sections to their final length.  After some head-scratching, I decided that I would use the compound miter saw to do this.

I placed the leg so that I would only remove a small section from one end, and clamped it in place so it wouldn’t move.  Then I carefully brought the saw down, cutting as deep as I could before either the arbor nut or the motor enclosure was almost hitting the leg.

Then I rotated the leg one turn, brought the saw down (without squeezing the trigger) until the teeth fit into part of the previous kerf, and then reclamped the leg.  Then I made another partial cut down into the leg.

I repeated this process until I had gone all the way around and the thin section at the end was completely cut free.

First partial cut into leg with the compound miter saw
Making multiple partial cuts into leg

The last pass was a little off, leaving a small curvy triangle proud of the rest of the end.  In the left photo below I have highlighted this with chalk.  A little work with the block plane took care of that.

Leg after cutting with the compound miter saw, small proud section highlighted with chalk
Leg end after some work with the block plane

I continued with the other three legs.  Then I repeated the process for the opposite end of each leg, cutting to the final length.  Some of them required more work with the block plane than others.

Cutting legs to final length
Cutting legs to final length