Cabriole legs
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Has anyone made cabriole legs? I’m wondering how you flatten and flush the leg post with the apron and smooth it. The cabriole knee juts out, keeping you from getting in with your plane. I’ve wondered about rasps, files, and scrapers or clamping a block to the apron and riding a router plane on it.
Anyone know the proper way to do this?
(Reposting to get around the blank first post bug….)
Has anyone made cabriole legs? I’m wondering how you flatten and flush the leg post with the apron and smooth it. The cabriole knee juts out, keeping you from getting in with your plane. I’ve wondered about rasps, files, and scrapers or clamping a block to the apron and riding a router plane on it.
Anyone know the proper way to do this?
Ed,
These might help.
You’ll have to subscribe for the second part of the instructional video.
and
http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/56996/how-to-carve-and-turn-a-cabriole-leg
There’s a bunch of others on Youtube.
Best,
CraigThanks, but this seems to be about shaping the legs rather than flattening the post and flushing it to an apron or establishing a flat surface with a step back to an apron. Might be easier to think of it in the context of a table rather than a chair. Perhaps I’m missing the right section of these videos, though.
I’m having trouble picturing what your trying to do maybe it’s too early in the morning could you post a picture of what you have so I can have a better understanding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af5oFasb2pM
Ed, here’s a video by Tommy MacDonald doing cabriole legs. It’s a 1/2 hour TV show so they kind of skip over details.
Anyways, Tommy dry fit the leg blanks to the aprons and then scribed a line from the apron onto the leg block. Then he cut out the top section on a band saw and cleaned it up later. How, I don’t know. I can’t rule out magic, but it was probably with a chisel, scraper, sanding, and a lot of praying.
Hi Salko,
In the photo, I’m pointing to a face of post on the cabriole leg. That face is cut on a bandsaw or bowsaw and is rough. It needs to be smoothed and, in this case needs to be brought down flush with the apron. The question is, how do you do this?
[quote]Tommy dry fit the leg blanks to the aprons and then scribed a line from the apron onto the leg block. Then he cut out the top section on a band saw and cleaned it up later. How, I don’t know. I can’t rule out magic, but it was probably with a chisel, scraper, sanding, and a lot of praying.
[/quote]Yeah, the magic is the question. It’s rough after the saw. If you think of other joints we make, like a mortise and tenon for a frame and panel or dovetails, we use the plane on the assembled joint to perfectly level one surface relative to another. Here, the knee is in the way. I’m starting to wonder about a rabbet plane, working from the outside corner inwards towards the apron. The apron will support the fibers so they don’t break out and the rabbet mouth will get you down tight against the shoulder. But, this would *not* work if you just wanted to flatten the post and have a reveal, e.g, a 1/8″ step down to the apron.
Anyways, back to your photo: I think paring with a chisel and resting the chisel on the apron is the best option. Nice slicing action would cut the leg without chewing it up too much.
Still, you could glue it up and then plane the lot flush from the outside in, like you said yourself. I’d use a regular plane and then finish with a chisel. I think you’d be OK.
With a reveal, I think you’d have to plane it and then finish in near the knee with a shoulder plane or chisel.
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use a belt sander. 🙂
Thanks for posting the photo and you’ve probably worked out a way by now but in case you haven’t here is what I would do. I would use a chisel not with the grain but across as your chisel wouldn’t lay flat on your work. Go at it on an angle using swooping cuts with this I mean swivel the chisel. Don’t take large chunks as you run the risk of going to deep but small paring cuts and keep paring it away till your almost flush with your apron. Make sure your chisel is very sharp you don’t want to create extra work for yourself by creating unsightly tear outs. You also want to use the corner of your chisel it will be easier for you to pare. To make your chiseling experience an easy one which should also speed up the entire process is to use a small crosscut saw and saw a few lines stopping above your finish line. This will help you pare away quickly and efficiently because your only now working with small amounts of timber. Now that you have less than a 32nd material left use either a bullnose plane by taking off the top and exposing the open end of the chisel slice with the grain now. You can also use a small router but you won’t get into the corners going with the grain so your best bet would be the bullnose. Lastly finish it off with a hand held scraper and then sandpaper.
I hope this helps.
To add to what I said: If you have a long chisel you could rest the back of the chisel on your apron and trim down the legs with a slicing action. Skewing, as Salko says.
Here’s another video I found of Doucette and Wolfe making a similar table. The builder just uses a chisel to define the joint and then goes at it with a block plane. It’s easy if you’re good I suppose.
Isn’t that fantastic watching a guy using his tools like that but if you noticed he he trimmed the corner edge with his chisel and then went over it with a block plane, however the block plane unlike a rabbet plane will not plane right to the very edge and most probably Ed doesn’t have a rabbet but most probably a router plane which will do the same thing.
Okay, here it is, leveled. I used a shoulder plane and a bench plane, working across the grain of the post. A rabbet plane probably would have been fine, but the only rabbet plane I have is too junky to set finely, so I used the shoulder plane. The shoulder plane got down into the corner and also provided the relief needed for the mouth of the bench plane. The bench plane (I used a #3, but anything would be fine) is wider, covers more ground more quickly, and gives a nice flat surface.
Here are the critical things that I experienced. When you work across the grain, you must take great care about breaking out the edge you are pushing towards. If you push towards the outside corner, you can break out your show edge. If you push towards the apron (inside) corner, there too you can break it out and if you’re too heavy handed, you could get in trouble. I’m playing with a leg and apron that are clamped but not glued. In a glued up joint, the apron ought to protect the edge from breaking out, but I’d still be careful. I was able to carefully work towards the outside show corner but *keeping the heel of the plane on the apron.* This means the toe of the plane is pointing upwards just a bit and does not go off the show edge. This relieved the corner on the apron side. I then turned around and worked towards the apron and flip flopped back and forth. Again, for a glued up joint, this probably isn’t needed.
The other thing to beware of is that when you come in from the outside edge, you may be going against the grain of the apron material, which was the case for me. That means big tear out. So, be sensitive for when you come flush so that you can turn around and skim with the grain of the apron.
I am hesitant about the chisel ideas for several reasons. For a wider apron, you’d have trouble with the mechanics. Also, when I cross-pare a tenon, it leaves a rough surface. In the end, you will need to figure out how to get a plane in on the action to get a smoother, flat surface, I think. As for paring along the grain, I think you stand a substantial risk of having the grain dive on you. The sweeping paring will probably be helpful at times, but the planes worked.
Doucette and Wolfe make beautiful stuff. Their videos are inspiring, their designs elegant, and the craftsmanship admirable. Thanks for posting that one…I’d not seen it. I think his chiseling is really shaping the top of the knee and then relieving the fibers. Then, the plane is being used on the post. That’s my guess, anyway! Perhaps he has relieved the outside corners before planing to keep from breaking them out?
Here’s a photo of the result on this test piece (maple).
Oh yeah…have a card scraper handy. Mine was elsewhere, but it would have helped at the very end to mary the shoulder plane area to the bench plane area on the apron and deal with the contrary grain directions.
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