[Psychbiker]

I "want" to make legs out of glued 3/4"x3" hardwood, making the legs 1.5"x3". They will be 18" tall and 16" wide like the pic below.

My question is the joining aspect. How can I make a 1.5" deep box joint? Is that even necessary? Will be supporting a 50"x20"x2" slab of black walnut. Making a coffee table. Other leg will be a recessed 3"x12" piece of oak.

For the boxjoint, Can I just keep raising the bit and make passes? What bit?

I dont have a band saw or a table saw jig.


Pic of legs I want to make out of wood.

 

[bcfunburst]

Box Joint

Welcome to The Forum . Hard to answer without knowing your experience level. I am looking at the photos you posted. Box joints are OK for making the leg assemblies and I would use a 1/2" straight bit w 1/2" shank, on a Router Table using a jig. You may want to consider some sort of reinforcement under the table to help stop that pesky Wracking hazard. I think even 3" wide hardwood isn't as strong as 3" wide steel leg assemblies. You will also find a lot of helpful ideas and instructions if you search out your questions on YouTube! Hope this helps you to have more fun with woodworking.

 

[PhilBa]

How big are your box joint fingers (er, hope that term doesn't spark another argument)? Given that the LS allows repeatable positioning, multiple passes at increasing depths will probably be ok though you might not wind up with super tight fingers. Since the board isn't that wide, you can probably get excellent contact just by clamping across the fingers.

By the way, you aren't limited to your router bit width as the finger size. Here's an example template that uses a 1/2" bit to make 5/8" fingers. Note that it shows where you make multiple passes to get the right width finger/slot. If you have an accurate printer, you can cut that strip out, reinforce it with clear tape and slide it into your LS.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

I'm with Reg on the racking issue. A square or rectangle easily become a parallelogram with racking force applied. A trapezoid is much stronger but you would probably be wanting to use a table saw to make that joint.