How to Make your own Woodturning stock for table legs from kiln-dried lumber.

Woodturning stock - This section of the table project describes the oak stock that I am making for the understructure of the table. The first picture shows a 12" wide 12'long 4 quarter oak board that I bought at Wall Lumber Company in Mayodan, NC. I sawed it up into three like pieces per table leg, planed them down, and then I glued three pieces together to come up with a three inch square. Any time I put glue on boards to join them together, I rub the glue in with my fingers to make sure that the surface is completely covered with no voids in the glue on the edges or anywhere out on the surface. A picture below shows you the four legs after they have been glued and then taken out of the clamps.

In order to cut the table legs to the proper length, I put a nail in the work surface of the radial arm saw. Then I butt each leg up against the nail as I saw it so that they all come out the same length. In this particular case being the same length did not work because one of the crosspieces on the old door is closer to the end than the other one. I had to put two of the legs on the crosspiece on one end of the door so I had to cut an inch off of the top of those legs to mount them on that board. I will go into more detail on this at a later stage of this project.