Looking for an easy way to spruce up your furniture designs? Meet tapered legs.
Used in everything from Shaker Style to Mid-Century Modern, tapers trim up the profile of your furniture — making it more elegant, refined, and just plain good-lookin’.
But figuring out the best way to cut a taper takes a bit of creativity. Afterall, so much of woodworking is cutting straight and square.
Today, I’m explaining 3 ways to cut tapered legs with different tools — including hand tools, a table saw, and a router.
Plus, I’ve added a few other methods for you to look into more deeply if they tickle your interest.
With all these different strategies, you always have something to fall back on if a cut starts to feel sketchy.
So let’s get to it.
Nathan Field
January 10, 2023
Nice article, I spent ages figuring out how to do a taper at 45 on an already tapered leg. I almost did it with a table saw, but I backed out at the last moment because I didn’t have confidence my holding jig would work.
I agree the jointer approach in the video looks really dangerous, but I ended up using the jointer in a very different way. I 3d printed a jig to hold the leg at 45 and canted at the correct angle, very slightly down so the taper to be cut was below the “bottom” of the jig. Then I stood behind the jointer with hands braced on the fence and drew the piece back towards me over the blade. This way I could only trim a small sliver at a time working down to the final taper depth, all with keeping my hands far from the blade.
I can’t imagine anyone understanding my explanation without a couple pictures or a diagram, but at the time I couldn’t figure out a way that I felt was safe or accurate given my 3d modeling and woodworking skills and tools. Which I’m sure doesn’t say much for the WW skills :)