The next step is to start milling the rough lumber by jointing and planing.  Once the pieces are milled they can be laminated to get the desired thickness.  After the lamination dries,  planing, jointing and planing ensued.

Jointing Pieces

The process of miling the lumber was very time consuming.  When I started jointing each face I would choose the surface that was most stable on the jointer bed.  Then it was a process of pushing it through while maintaing downward pressure on the outfeed table.  Flip the board end for end to avoind tapering and repeat.

After I jointed the surface, I put the freshly jointed surface againt the fence and jointed the edge.  This makes a flat and perpendicular surface.

Planing Pieces

Once that tedium was finished, it was on to more.  Planing, planing, planing.  Since all the boards are slightly different thickness, there are quite a few passes through the planer that doesn’t remove any material.  Essentially,  each board was passed through at one thickness setting.  The planer was lowered and all boards passed through again.    Once I thought a board was getting planed across the whole surface, I would make a bunch of pencil scribbles on it.  Then, adjust the planer down, pass it through again to make sure it was completely removed.  Next, flip the board over and make more scribbles, lower planer,  and pass it through again.  If all the scribbles are gone, then the board was set aside.

Ripping Pieces

Once all the fun was finsished with the planer, I ripped all the lumber down to the same width on the table saw.  Using my favorite push stick below.

Gluing Lamination

After ripping all the boards, it was time to layout for the lamination.  I chose board combinations that would make the leg thicknesses pretty close to each other.  6 boards per lamination.  I use wax paper in between the two legs so I don’t accidentally glue them together with excess glue oozing out.  Pour glue on each lamination, rotate them up and add clamps.

After the legs get out of the clamps, it was time to scrape the glue.

Planing Laminated Surfaces

Then, I passed the legs through the planer to ensure all the legs were the same thickness.  So I planed the faces and used scribbles to ensure the whole surface was getting hit.   You can see the planing orientation below.

Jointing and Planing Laminated Edges

After thicknessing,  I jointed the laminated edges on one side while pushing the planed surface against the fence.  I wanted to ensure the face was flat and perpendicular to the previously planed surfaces.  After jointing, it was back to the planer to set the final width of the legs.  I wasn’t shooting for any specific width, just that all legs were the same width.

All the legs are now 4 square.  YAY!

I wanted to cut one end of the legs flush and thought I would try the bandsaw.

This worked okay but was a little unstable and the surface was pretty rough. I had to hand plane the cut surface to smooth it out.  I am going to use the table saw from now own to achieve a better surface.