4 sided tapered leg

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dealguy11
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4 sided tapered leg

Post by dealguy11 »

Haven't posted any projects in awhile and thought I'd share this 4-sided tapered leg we made today, along with the fixture/hold-down for it. The point here is mostly that these fixtures can be pretty simple. The hold-down is just a hole cut into a piece of MDF that is a very tight press fit for the blank. The MDF is screwed to the spoilboard. The 4 plywood blocks have angled screws to pull them into the block while it's cutting to provide an additional level of friction and prevent the block from tipping. I didn't use the 2-sided machining features of Aspire - just made 4 separate files for each side of the block. The modeling was all done in Aspire.
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PXL_20230524_211615483.jpg
PXL_20230524_211627403.jpg
Steve Godding
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4DThinker
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by 4DThinker »

Nicely done! Great looking leg. Many years back I made aluminum brackets and an indexing wheel to hold wood in place for exactly the same purpose. That was for my CNC Shark with a t-track bed. I taught furniture design before I retired and used that rig to make a nice sample leg to tease my students with. Turned out it is a challenge to shake them away from Mid century modern or industrial styles or occasionally some more graceful Danish modern style. Never had a student that could imagine a need for my rig.
Curious what the rest of the table that leg looks like.
4D

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dealguy11
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by dealguy11 »

Here's the drawings for the final leg. A slab of glass will fit into the "U" shape at top. There will be bolt holes drilled into the glass, and a hole will be drilled through the top of the leg (under the cap) and into the body of the leg for the bolt. The cap will be a decorative flower carving that covers the bolt hole. Wood is sapele.
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Leg Drawings.JPG
Steve Godding
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Phil
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by Phil »

Thanks for posting, good to see how you developed the process.

Phil

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jimandi5000
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by jimandi5000 »

Pro level work... very nice. (I'm jealous)
Thanks,
Jim

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Leo
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by Leo »

I love that kind of fixturing.

It shows that we don't need to spend a small fortune on things that are ADVERTISED to us.

Very frugakl and very practical :D :D :D :D :D
Imagine the Possibilities of a Creative mind, combined with the functionality of CNC

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dealguy11
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by dealguy11 »

I should also mention that I used a downcut bit for the roughing so that it wouldn't pull up on the material while cutting. This allowed the holddown to work with just friction and a little bit of double sided tape. If I'd used an upcut bit, it would have needed another block at each end with screws into the material to keep it from being pulled up. The downcut bit worked fine for this because sapele is pretty soft and cuts away really nicely. If it was hard maple I would have reconsidered bit options.

For the carving, it's taking so little off of the material per pass that it doesn't matter whether it's pulling up or down.

Finished all 4 legs on this setup with no movement or vibration.
Steve Godding
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stephenr
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by stephenr »

Thank you for the details.

Stephen R.

wilkigr
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Re: 4 sided tapered leg

Post by wilkigr »

They look incredible. Thank you from a relative novice for posting the process. It gives me lots of ideas.

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