Seamless Leg Glue-Ups

Many furniture projects feature legs or posts that require stock that is thicker than other components on the piece. It’s not uncommon to need a blank of material that starts out at anywhere from 1-1/2” to 5”. It’s expensive and impractical to maintain an inventory of leg stock in these massive dimensions for every wood species that you work with, so how can you create your own nice-looking leg stock using the material that you have on hand for your project?

The answer lies in laminating together multiple pieces of the stock that you have for the rest of your project. Gluing up leg stock can be an effective approach, but there are some potential pitfalls to watch out for, and you want to be sure that your finished project doesn’t look some somebody smacked it with the ‘ugly stick’.

In this video George will walk you through the steps for gluing up furniture legs, which at a high level include:

Face joint: you want a perfectly seamless appearance which requires that you establish a nice flat mating surface on each piece that will be glued up.

Mark your mating edges. This is a great pro tip that is often overlooked. When you rip a board that will be laminated to make leg stock, you can have a perfectly book-matched surface on one of the edges if you carefully mark the edges so that you can align them when you glue up your legs.

Lots of clamps. Don’t skimp on clamps during your glue-up, as this will help you apply even pressure across the full joint and prevent any gaps from appearing.

Once you master the art of seamless laminated leg glue-ups, you’ll find that you will use this technique on all kinds of projects, and nobody will ever notice.