Kitchen Table - Part 1 - Legs and Apron

After finishing off the Craftsman Ottoman, I wanted to do another 'quick' project before starting on Lauren's bed. I chose to replace our $50 kitchen table that we bought when we first got married with a bigger version of the kids table I build for Joshua earlier this year. It'll be a simple solid red oak top, walnut apron and red oak legs.

I started with the apron boards, milling the walnut to 3" x 7/8" x 46+". I left the pieces a little long so that I could have extra for testing the tenons. After milling the wood I stacked them and set them aside until I was ready to cut the tenons.

For the legs I decided to go with 2 1/2" square legs, made up of 4 mitre pieces. To keep waste to a minimum I made them up from boards that were around 8" in width, flipping them over after every mitre cut on the tablesaw. I used my planer sled to flatten the boards before cutting the mitres on the tablesaw.

I don't have a picture of the glue-up but it wasn't particularly tricky. Just use painter's tape to hold them together and a few clamps if the pieces need a little help lining up (mine did).

After the legs were all glued up, I moved over to the router table to cut the mortises in the top of the legs. I used a 3/8" spiral upcut bit for the mortises, so ripped a piece of scrap to 1 1/16" (2 1/2" - 3/8" = 2 1/8" divided by 2) to set the fence to center to mortise in the leg.

To cut the mortise I slide the leg in to the bit along the fence, which blasts the wood chips away from the leg. I setup my shop vac to catch the chips as the regular vac port on the fence doesn't catch any of these chips. A stop block clamped to the fence makes sure I don't cut the mortise to far down the leg.

The finished leg with mortises cut in two sides of each leg. The mortises cut right through the solid part of the leg into the hollow center. The tenons will be cut next and they'll be 7/8" thick to match the thickness of the leg parts.