The legs for the cherry etageres. Solid or glue-up?

[Gene Davis]

Next up, it is time to build the etageres for the den/office room. See the image here for the look of the piece, a copy of what Ethan Allen sells.

The legs can be seen on all sides and therefore wood selection is critical.

In a perfect world, there would be a never-sorted-through fresh bunk of rift sawn all-red cherry down at the yard, one all 8/4 and the next one at 10/4. The project is for a run of five of these, so the legs total twenty. If my dream bunk of cherry is the one at 8/4 and the lengths are fourteen feet, I really only need 47 bf of lumber.

We do not live in a perfect world. To laminate these up, what approach would you use? 5/4 x 2 laminations? 4/4 x 3? What tricks would you use?

[Brian Holcombe]

Gene, my experience has been that 8/4 stock is usually better material for legs, more often it's clear and straight grained. I'd stick with 8/4, you're making a lot of work for yourself to glue up 20 6' legs.

[David Hawxhurst]

my preference would be to go with solid.

[Gene Davis]

Thanks for the replies. I agree and will see if one of the local suppliers can do what I need. My go-to place for something like this will be Collector's Specialty Woods, Denver. I think they are willing to do the sorting so what I get will have little waste.

I'll probably end up paying around $15/bf for this, but if they can blank them out for me, it will be worth it.