Miter Lock Bit

[Pappy]

I am about ready to start the rebuild of a 6' pool table I was given. The subframe and slate are good but the legs, rails and skirting are particle board. Time and humidity have taken their toll.

Plan is to replace the rails with some from an 8' table that I can cut down to fit. The skirt and legs will be spalted Hackberry with possibly some inlaid Mesquite.

My thought is to taper the legs about 10 degrees. I have a miter lock bit but can't find anything on routing a joint on a taper. Anyone tried it? Any special set up that needs to be done?

[mpc]

I think I'd do the leg glue-up first while everything is still square. It'd be easier to clamp and vertical alignment won't be an issue. After the glue dries use a miter saw or whatever to cut the ends straight & square and to final length. Then do the taper cuts. Save the taper off-cuts to tape back on as shims when doing opposite side taper cuts.

I tried a lock miter router bit a few months ago and the setup took quite a while. And that was with consistent sized stock. I'm not sure you could even run a tapered workpiece past a lock-miter bit? For a leg glue-up, one thing I'd do is cut off the inner tip of each piece so that there was a small square hollow inside the final glue-up. That'll give you a little cheating room during the glue-up if the pieces aren't 100% perfectly mitered.

mpc

[cabinetman]

My thought is to taper the legs about 10 degrees. I have a miter lock bit but can't find anything on routing a joint on a taper. Anyone tried it? Any special set up that needs to be done?

If I understand how you are intending the taper, the lock miter will give a 90 degree corner, for the length of the leg. I cut the taper, and then run the pieces. The only setup would be to get the angle for the taper.

If you plan on a "splayed" leg with the LM bit, where the angle of the joint is different than 90 degrees, I haven't done that with that bit, but I guess it would require shimming the passing (if possible), and whether it would produce as good a joint would be resolved with test pieces.

.

[Pappy]

The legs will be square, about 8" at the top and tapering to about 6" at the bottom. They are only about 2' tall.

[pelligrini]

I don't think there will be any special setup, the angle for the sides of the legs to each other will still be 90 degrees.

Just think of a tapered leg face on the router table, either flat on the table or vertical on the fence. There is only one way for the other face to fit it, at 90 degrees.

[LCHIEN]

I don't think there will be any special setup, the angle for the sides of the legs to each other will still be 90 degrees.

Just think of a tapered leg face on the router table, either flat on the table or vertical on the fence. There is only one way for the other face to fit it, at 90 degrees.

I think Pellegrini is right.

Looking at the setup for miter lock bits, its very fussy, like MPC says.
Technically it sounds neat, but the bits are expensive and it seems difficult to set up.
Have you considered alternatives? For example a 6" square leg of 1-bys would have plenty of room inside for a square post in each corner to fasten the 45 degree mitered sides to. No one would ever know the difference except you and it might be a lot easier and cheaper. and just as strong.

[BadeMillsap]

Lock Miter isn't THAT hard to get right ...

... at least that was my experience as I detailed in the discussions about building the Mission style queen sized bed ... this link shows you a part of that discussion and my results ... => Thread on Lock Miter results

It does take some patience and experimentation with correctly sized scrap (but my experience with woodworking, regardless of the task) is that is always the case if you want it to be "right".

I can't speak to the taper issue since my pieces were straight but I can caution you to take small bites and make several passes to get to the end result. Those bits remove quite a lot of wood getting to the end point.

I did it with a very manually controlled "lift" meaning no real lift was involved and I just used the rather gross adjustments my router allowed and my "fence" is also very crude ... a good lift and a precision fence would make the adjustments to "right" much easier.

One man's opinion (and like noses, everyone has one and most people think yours looks funny) ... but I rather liked the lock miter joint ... at least in my case it made for very handsome four sided quarter sawn oak legs.

[cabinetman]

... at least that was my experience as I detailed in the discussions about building the Mission style queen sized bed ... this link shows you a part of that discussion and my results ... => Thread on Lock Miter results

It does take some patience and experimentation with correctly sized scrap (but my experience with woodworking, regardless of the task) is that is always the case if you want it to be "right".

I can't speak to the taper issue since my pieces were straight but I can caution you to take small bites and make several passes to get to the end result. Those bits remove quite a lot of wood getting to the end point.

I did it with a very manually controlled "lift" meaning no real lift was involved and I just used the rather gross adjustments my router allowed and my "fence" is also very crude ... a good lift and a precision fence would make the adjustments to "right" much easier.

One man's opinion (and like noses, everyone has one and most people think yours looks funny) ... but I rather liked the lock miter joint ... at least in my case it made for very handsome four sided quarter sawn oak legs.

+1. I agree. They aren't that difficult to set up.

.

[pecker]

I don't think you can actually make tapered legs using a 45 degree miter.
I don't have enough math background to explain it, but in the past I made something similar...a truncated pyramid. And when I cut the miters at 45 degrees it wouldn't actually go together.

I used a little program called POLYCUT to determine the compund angles.

http://www.woodcentral.com/bparticles/polyinst.exe