Any suggestions on a bad walnut table leg?

[Paul Pavone]

One of the legs on my walnut table looks pretty bad.
1. How should I go about filling the seam down the middle?
2. What about the chip-outs?
also, did I do something wrong to get those pockets all over? Maybe my jointer?

thanks
IMG_1105.jpg

Paul

[Brett Luna]

Is it already milled to final dimensions? If not, perhaps you could just rip it down the seam and re-glue. Otherwise, I would consider ripping a groove in the seam and gluing in a patch with similar grain. It won't do the bookmatch any favors but then neither would any other filler I can think of. As for the tearout, I can only recommend planing it out. If you don't have any extra thickness to play with, you may be able to make the other three legs match and adjust the plan to fit.

[Steve Jenkins]

I agree with Brett. It looks like you ran it through the planer in the wrong direction. And I'd also recut and reglue the joint paying close attention to direction when rejointing the edges.

[Jim Becker]

MAJOR tear-out there...it's going to be hard, if not impossible to correct that. I'd personally remake the leg...

[Paul Pavone]

thanks
The leg is still over sized anyway so I'll shave them down to clean them up and resaw. Paying attention to the grain direction
I've never really worked with Walnut before.

[John TenEyck]

Walnut is not any different than many other woods. Most woods will suffer tear out if you run them uphill across the jointer or through the planer. Look at the edge of the board and make sure to feed it so the grain is running downhill so that the knife is laying the grain down and not trying to pull it up. Sometimes, you'll get tear out no matter which way you run the board, in which case all you can do is try to minimize it and then use a high angle hand plane or scraper, or sand it to final dimension.

Was that joint tight when first glued up and it opened later? If so, something was wrong along the way - poor joint preparation, too little glue, or the moisture content of your wood was out of equilibrium with your shop.

John

[Jim Becker]

Paul, if they are oversized, you may be able to recover using a very sharp hand-plane moving in the correct direction...

[Paul Pavone]

Turns out it was my old tabletop jointer!
I ran them through my planer and all is well and to the right size. whew....

Also I need to join the two table top halves together. Each half is 2" thick, 18" wide and about 8 feet long. They have been planed but still need serious sanding.
plan:
1. rip the pieces so the book-match lines up using my circular saw and a metal stud as a guide.
2. go to my neighbors and joint them on his 8" jointer.
3. Biscuit join them with clamps every 6" or so.
4. sand the top starting with 120 RO disks.
is it reasonable for me to think I can get a smooth straight edge

option for number 2 might be to use a router?
thanks for the help

paul

[Wayne Lomman]

Paul, you can expect to get a good, straight joint between the 2 pieces. You will actually get a good fit after step 1 if you have a good sharp TCT saw blade. Gluing 2 fine sawn edges together gives a stronger bond than planed edges. I would check the fit after step 1. If not satisfactory, I would have a go with the router.
Set up both pieces on trestles or a bench leaving a gap between them slightly smaller than the diameter of your router cutter.
Clamp both pieces down so they can't move in relation to each other.
Set up your metal stud as a fence/ guide for the router so that when you run it through the gap, you cut both sides at the same time.
Do the cut. You now have 2 matching edges even if the straight edge wasn't straight.
Glue and clamp as usual. It is better to spend the time and get the edges to match so that you don't have to clamp too heavily - reduces stress on the joint if you don't have to put a 4 foot pipe on the sash clamp handle to get the joint to close. Also, use a good quality glue. Titebond 3 will work well provided you are not using a solvent based polyurethane for finishing. If you are, use epoxy glue instead.
If you have to do your sanding with RO, spend the time to get the joint as nearly level as possible when gluing and also consider doing the basic leveling with a sharp hand plane.

Cheers!

[Robert Engel]

I think you should expect good results with your approach.

Trick on jointing wide boards is alternate the faces against the fence this way you cancel out any potential error when making a panel.

On a board this thick, I don't think biscuits will be necessary.

Try hand planing a piece of walnut with a good smoother w/sharp blade and compare that to the surface you get with sanding. I think you'll agree it is pretty nice.

Before you do anything I would use winding sticks on each board and make sure the top is flat and not twisted.