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Farmhouse Bed Leg Question

Submitted by pkniland on Wed, 01/09/2013 - 08:35

All,
I am building the farmhouse table out of solid cherry. The rails and top are no problem, the only 4x4 post that I can find are fir, I am planning on staining the whole table and I do not like the way fir stains, especially with the top being cherry. I was thinking of using a cherry veneer on the legs and was wondering if anyone has had any luck with that.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

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Finishing Support and Advice

re-store design

Wed, 01/09/2013 - 08:41

Since fir is much cheaper I would experiment on a piece until you get a good match. In the past I have used tea (yes lipton) to give the wood a more rich coloring before staining. I would use oil based since you are doing a table. You will want to durability.

geophyrd

Sat, 01/12/2013 - 06:49

Its pretty rare to find a 4x4 without cracks, checks, knots, etc. You have a couple of options. What I did on the bed was to take 2 2" boards and glue them together. You have to prepare the surface. If you don't have a jointer and planer, you can use a hand plane but it has to be flat and smooth in order to make a good joint for gluing. If you have a jointer/planer, its really easy. Just do your thing.

When connecting the boards, you can use a biscuit joiner if you have one, or dowels (if you use dowels, you can use a self centering dowel marker. You drill holes in one side, put in the markers and their sharp ends poke out. Put your boards together and the points will indent the other board and show you where your other dowel hole should go). For an example of a dowel center, you can google: "Milescraft 5343 Dowel and Tenon Center Set, 8-Piece" but just dowel center should also do it. They're $5.34 on Amazon.

You can clean the surface with denatured alcohol (to get the sawdust off) and apply even glue. Clamp the heck out of it...not just side to side to keep the pressure on the glue area but on the surface to keep the two boards flat.

If you can't find 2" thick boards (8/4 in lumber yard talk), you can do 4 boards of 1". The only other suggestion is to match the grain as best you can.

Good luck!