Starting with the rough lumber. This is 6/4 cherry from a hardwood dealer. To get the best possible grain direction in the legs, try to orient the grain so that it runs from corner to far corner. This gives you best possibility of getting straight lines going down the legs on all sides.

Starting with the rough lumber. This is 6/4 cherry from a hardwood dealer. Since I don't need any 6/4 after this, I'm leaving the length as long as possible so that I can cut off from both ends to get rid of any snipe the power planer might add.

Break out the rip panel saw. I think my next project is going to be a saw bench. Cutting at this height was a lot more work and came up with bad cuts (not that saw technique had anything to do with that :) )

Rip cuts go so nicely. Don't rush it, don't death grip the saw, finger pointed down the spine, and let the saw do the work. Little wax on your saw blade makes this much easier.

Rip cuts go so nicely. Don't rush it, don't death grip the saw, finger pointed down the spine, and let the saw do the work.

Rip cuts go so nicely. Don't rush it, don't death grip the saw, finger pointed down the spine, and let the saw do the work.

Yeah, I don't have it apparently and need more practice. The top line was true and straight, but the bottom line wandered. I'm blaming it on not having a proper saw bench.

Figure out your high spots and start jointing them out. Check several spots along the piece to get a feel for if the piece is twister or otherwise out of flat.

Mark the high spots with chalk/pencil/marker and start planing until it's gone. Check your square often and adjust as needed.

Figure out your high spots and start jointing them out. Check several spots along the piece to get a feel for if the piece is twister or otherwise out of flat.

Mark the high spots with chalk/pencil/marker and start planing until it's gone. Check your square often and adjust as needed.

Wait till you get full length & full width shavings and you should have a completely flat face to reference off of.

If my cut technique wasn't so bad, I would have been able to cut it all down and joint/square up once they were all cut. I ended up squaring and jointing between all of my hand saw cuts, since as you'll see in future pics - I need more practice (and a saw bench, I'm blaming that)

More cuts to be made!

Need more practice

Another option Is to use a shooting board

Square again!

And clean up the edge again

Decided to do the last cut on the table saw as I didn't have much clearance to make the cut with the panel saw. Changed out the blade to the thin kerf rip blade for the best possible cut quality.

You want just a little bit of the gullet above the piece being cut. On this it's roughly 3/8" above the wood.

Trying out my new power air respirator. Jury is still out on it as of now as it interferes with the glasses. Kept the dust out even with the beard though, which was nice.

Adjusting to keep the piece flat and level and out of the way of the blade. Read the manual or watch the videos.

And just a little bit quicker.

The legs are all cut to 1.5" and ready to start dimensioning. I left a lot of room for play, since as you see my hand saw technique can use some TLC.

Joint and square up two sides to be reference edges for the planer

Looks good, ready to go into the planer.

Looks good, ready to go into the planer.

I mark the reference edges so I don't accidentally put them into the planer incorrectly. It should also be noted that as bad as that bottom edge is, it needs to be flatted more than that so it doesn't twist in the planer.

Bring them to final dimensions if you don't plan on hitting them anymore with a smoothing plane, or close to final dimensions if you plan to further mill them.

The intent of this build was to build it almost entirely with hand tools, but even I have my limits. A thickness planer will just save your sanity in a hand tools shop...

1-1/8" square, gotta love it. Ignore the gap in the square, the "precision square" isn't so precisely square...

Four 1-1/8" cherry shaker end table legs ready for taper and joinery. In the process of planing uncovered some nasty knots in one of the pieces that won't be removed as part of the taper - so that piece is going to get tossed.

Oh well, would rather have a nice piece for the legs than one full of knots. That's how things go sometimes.

Clean shop is happy shop.