Double Taper Using a Taper Jig

I'm working on a project, it's a small stool, and the end of the stool looks like this. It's got this double taper cut into it, and using a taper guide on the table saw, I know a lot of people have done that, but the double taper is something that's a little bit tricky. There's a pretty easy workaround for this. So this is what it's gonna look like when we're done. On this piece, I've got a layout line that establishes the angle I wanna cut that at, the notches up here at the top are for a rail that I'm gonna add to this later. So what I do is I take this piece to my taper guide. The taper guide is up against the fence here on the miter saw, and it's able to open up to different angles. Now, when everything is set, the way this'll work is that, I'll lock everything down, the target piece and the taper guide are all gonna feed together. What I have to do is get this angle perfectly set. So, a good way to do that is to simply measure from the line to the fence in two spots until that measurement is the same, that tells me that the pencil line and the fence are perfectly parallel to each other, which means I'm matching the angle I want. So I'm gonna measure down here at the bottom. Then I'm gonna measure up here at the top. Not quite the same yet. That looks very good there. Gonna open this up just a little bit more. Then we lock the taper guide in place. So now that angle position is gonna stay constant. The next thing I need to do is position the fence. So, with the sawn plug, I'm gonna slide this over. And as I position the fence, the thing to keep in mind is that, you're gonna wanna go back with a jointer and clean this edge up. So I do wanna cut to the outside of my pencil line, then I can lock the fence in place. Now we're ready to plug the saw in and go ahead and make this cut off of this side. Now, that gives us a taper on one side. I can't simply flip this over and put it on the other side, because the existing taper would throw us off over here. Very easy solution though. I'm gonna retrieve this off cut. I don't need this guy. And using double-faced tape, I'm gonna simply fix this corner right back onto the board. What that does is, down here on the bottom, it kinda returns us to a rectangle shape. Now, I can come back to my taper jig, put that corner against it. The only thing I have to adjust for now is the width of the saw blade. I've made the board the same shape, but it's not the same width, 'cause I took a cut out of it. So here on the fence, I have to compensate for the thickness of my saw blade. That's by making the cut just a little bit narrower, then I can go ahead and cut the other side. Now I can simply remove that temporary support piece. I've got the same taper on both edges. Now, when you take this to the jointer, keep in mind that you wanna joint it downhill. So whenever you have a taper like this, you would joint in this direction on this side, this direction on this side. Otherwise, if you go the wrong way, the jointer's gonna have a tendency to lift and tear those fibers, you won't get a very good cut. Great technique, produces a nice, attractive double taper.