The pictures and dimensions are from an old book, Masterpieces of Furniture by Verna Cook Salomonsky. The book is readily available. You can also download a picture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I started by making full sized drawings of the top and frame. I also made a full size story stick of the leg turnings.
Since I am not a great lathe turner, I decided to make a practice leg from some soft maple that I have, it required 1 3/4 inch stock. Cutting the shape 60 degrees on the front and 30 degrees on the back was an interesting task. I'll show you how in a later video in detail.
The first thing I found out after cutting the leg stock was that I could not get the 1 3/8 inch round circle within the cut stock. The largest circle I could get was 1 1/4 inch. I thought I would practice anyway and see how it looked.
I turned the two pommels and then the center to 1 1/4 inch. Then I marked the pattern on the center and turned it with a spindle gouge.
I turned the pattern on to the leg but it was real difficult with it offset by the top and lower solid pieces. There was a lot of vibration and flexing in the center. I decided to approach it in a different manner.
I decided to turn the center out of 1 3/8 stock and leave 7/8 inch tenons on each end. That way I could turn the top and bottom pommels separate from the shaped stock and glue up the assembly when I was done.
Here is a cherry center of the leg with 7/8 inch tenons on each end. It was much easier to turn it this way.
Then I turned the end pieces pommels and drilled holes to fit the tenons.
Below is two maple ends with cherry center for practice. Looks like it is going to work but I have to practice turning the pommels on the ends without chipping them.
In the next post I'll detail how I will make the legs from the cherry stock.
Here is today's video:
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