Drawing mortise on angled table leg

rjmarshall17 · 5 Nov 2010, 16:26

Hi,

Sorry if I don't have all the correct terminology here, I'm new to both woodworking and SU.

What I am trying to do is to create a table that will have the front legs angled out at 10 degrees. It's for a reloading press, hence my thinking that angling the front legs will help with the pressure created when pulling down on the handle. Anyway...I want the front and side pieces/stretchers to join at the legs in a (don't know the term...) mitered(?) mortise and tenon joint. You know, it's the one where they meet in the middle and each has a 45 degree angle in the tenon so they match up...I can figure out how to put in the mortise (with haunch) on the flat side of the leg, but the mortise on the backside of the leg will need to be angled and I don't know how to create the surface I need in order to push through to meet up with the mortise coming in from the "front" side.

If this question has already been asked, I apologize for asking again, I wasn't sure which terms to search on.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Rob

Dave R · 5 Nov 2010, 22:04

Rob, I think the easiest thing to do in this case is draw the stretcher with the tenon on it as desired. Make sure it is drawn in place between the legs and make it a component. The legs should already be components. Open the stretcher component for editing, select the geometry of the tenon and hit Ctrl+C (Command-C on the Mac). Then open the leg component for editing and click on Edit>Paste in Place. Select all of the component, right click and choose Intersect Faces>With Selected. Finally delete the skin over the mortise and correct the face orientation. You can hide the stretcher temporarily to make this easier or work in X-ray mode so you can see what's going on.

By the way, you shouldn't need a haunched tenon. Haunches are normally used on the top/bottom of rails when the groove in the stiles extends to the ends. the haunches fill the grooves. I also don't think splayed legs will be better than straight ones. The downward force on your reloader handle will try to spread the legs further apart which will put more stress on those mortise and tenon joints than if you have vertical legs.

rjmarshall17 · 5 Nov 2010, 22:33

Hi Dave,

I'll have to try that. In the meantime I had figured out that if I make the mortise on the "flat" side, and then create a surface on the inside and push it all the way out on the back, I could then draw lines around it where it intersected with the leg, delete the protruding piece, erase the lines, and then delete the surface left on the back leg...

But you also make a good point about the downward forces on the legs and that I probably don't need to angle them at all. Although this has been a good learning experience

Thanks for all the help,

Rob