I'm working on a pair of night stands with tapered legs and could really use some help on cutting the tapers. I'm still very new at this - this is only my second project - but this seems like a basic operation that I should be able to do correctly. The night stand can be seen here: http://www.grizzly.com/products/H9609/images. The legs are 1.5" square with tapers on two sides. The tapers are supposed to begin 7 inches up from the bottom of the legs and finish so that the bottom of the legs are 1" square. I made a tapering jig for the table saw based on the one in Norm's first book.
I've laid out the taper on the leg, lined the cut line up with the miter slot, then positioned the fence so that the cut line is lined up with the saw blade. What's happening is where the saw blade enters the workpiece I'm getting a rounded cut instead of a straight line to start the taper. I'm not sure if this is clear so I've drawn an example of what I'm talking about. The darker freehand lines show the results I'm getting. This is a problem because the table aprons attach just above the tapers.
I'm using 8/4 cherry, which is some of the nicest wood I've ever worked with, it's such a shame to be wasting it. I've already ruined two legs. At this point I'm thinking of trying to cut the tapers on the bandsaw and using my sanding center to clean up the faces. Sure would be nice though to be able to do this on the tablesaw like most others seem to be able to do.
Thanks for any help/suggestions.
Brian