Creating a Waterfall Edge
George VondriskaDescription
Waterfall edges add a beautiful, and slightly mystifying, touch to furniture. When done correctly the grain will flow, continuously, from a horizontal surface to a vertical surface. Waterfall edges are commonly used for table tops and legs, but can be used any place you’re creating a corner.
Tools required
When you cut a waterfall edge the cut needs to be perfectly straight, and have really good cut quality. If you’re missing either of these components the joint will have gaps. A track saw, like the Kreg saw system, provides the best method for making the cut.
The joint we need
Waterfall edges are created by cutting a miter joint between the horizontal and vertical surfaces. The miter doesn’t have to result in a 90-degree corner, but it commonly does.
Leg length
The length of the leg controls the height of the table or bench. You can waterfall both ends of your project, or cut a waterfall on one end and use commercially made legs on the other end.
Getting the grain to flow
The key to a nice waterfall edge, with grain flow as seamless as possible between the two surfaces, is losing as little wood as possible. This is about the kerf of the saw blade. Follow the procedure in the video carefully.
Assembling the waterfall
The miter joint needs to be reinforced, so add some form of loose tenon (biscuits, dowels, dominoes) to the joint to strengthen it. Assemble the joint using clamping cauls.
More info
Kreg’s track saw is part of their Adaptive Cutting System. For more info on Kreg products visit www.kregtools.com or call (800) 447-8638
A great feature that you'll find on a lot of live edge furniture, especially, is what's called a waterfall edge or a waterfall leg. What that means is that, at this position, where we're gonna make this cut, we fold these pieces so that the grain on the leg, when it's vertical, flows directly into the grain at the top, which is of course horizontal. And we do this by doing a 45 degree cut, and a 45 degree cut, to create that fold. And there are a couple keys to this. Good cut quality. Cutting nice and straight, so the mitre comes back together. And, when this is done correctly, there's very little material removed and the grain is continuous from one spot to the other. So, here's where I'm at. My slab is secured to the table. Beautiful piece of white oak. My leg length is currently too long. I like to not cut those to its finished length until after this part is done. So I'm oversized by about an inch right now. My track is ready, and a track saw like the Kreg unit is a really, really good way to do this. 'Cause the track guarantees that you're gonna travel in a perfectly straight line with the saw. We've got this great indicator right here, line of cut indicator. So it makes this part simple. I put the edge of that rubber strip right on my layout line and clamp the track in place. Then, with the track saw, we're gonna tip that to 45 degrees. Now in this case, I am doing what'll result in a 90 degree waterfall edge, but it doesn't have to be. You could change the angle here, so that that leg is gonna splay out a little bit, when you're done. It's also a very cool look. One of the things we'd like to do is have that offcut piece supported, so that as I cut through, it doesn't just collapse off the bench here. Leaves that nice knife edge right there. First half of the mitre is done. I'll bring back that offcut back. And this is the real important part of this. And this is where the track really, really pays off, because to get good grain flow, we wanna lose as little material as possible. We're gonna lose one curve, 'cause we have to make a cut. We don't wanna lose two curves. What I mean by losing a curve, is that when we make a cut through here, we need our next cut to be right at this point, where the angle meets the flat. Easiest way to do that is to use your track, get that guide edge right on that transition point. Now, let's get a look at what we have here. A great way to eyeball this would be, look at that wonderful flame in the oak, right there. And when this piece gets attached as a leg, look at how that flame is gonna come up the leg, and flow right into the horizontal surface. What a great mitre in that inch and a half thick white oak. Really worked out nice. Now for leg length, now that this cut is done, you can use the Kreg and the track again, the saw on the track again, come down here, establish your final leg length. Use that track to cut that. For assembly of this, we've got another video that completely covers the assembly process on a waterfall edge. And we'll put a link for that in the description. So you can watch that. So it's really key on this, I think, the Kreg track system makes making a waterfall edge very simple because of the cut quality that you get. And you need that cut quality and positioning ability in order to make sure that that waterfall's gonna come back together seamlessly and give you that wonderful flow of grain.
What's the name of the track?
With all due respect, I have issues with the decision to make a table like this. Hardwood is more expensive than ever and this uses a lot of it to make a very basic, n-shaped table. With over 40 years of woodworking experience, I have little confidence that I could make that miter cut look good enough. The miter joint is inherently unstable and weak (you have to take into consideration that, eventually, somebody's gonna stand on this thing!). A lock miter glue joint would be my choice to solve that problem and that would require a good router table for that bit, which takes some doing to align correctly. I've used it for mitered drawers with good results and prefer it to dovetailing the drawer sides. The lock miter bits only work for the specific thickness of your work piece, so you have to buy the correct size. Running large, long and heavy pieces along a router table can be a separate challenge. I have a DeWalt biscuit saw and alignment has always been sub-optimal for me and joint strength questionable. If you don't have router table or $1,000 to buy one, use the biscuit saw instead. I don't have a track saw, but it's basically a circular saw following a straight edge. I'm sure I could improvise one. If the width of the crosscut is less than 14", I could do it on safely with my miter saw. Longer than that, I could use my table saw but with the expected less-than-perfect, straight and perpendicular cut. The 45s here have to be absolutely perfect for everything to line up or it will look amateurish. A jointer-planer might help or it could make it worse. Due to the unavoidable kerf loss, the waterfall effect will be less than perfect and honestly, considering all of the work and expense required with this project, nobody but the woodworker will likely even notice, let alone appreciate the challenge of its construction. I've built a lot of tables and prefer a 4-legged frame with stretchers that dovetail into the legs and with the table top secured to the frame with hidden, wooden cleats. Beading can easily be cut on the 2 unused sides of each leg and along the bottoms of the stretchers using a router table for a very professional look. It's simple, as solid as the wood, looks great and requires just 8 #10 screws to secure the cleats, no other hardware.