Sculptured Chair

[Bmac]

So I thought I'd join the party. long time lurker, always enjoy the project journals and I esp enjoy chair journals. I seem to have an affinity to chairs, love the process and love sitting in something I made.

This project journal is going to be two Sculptured Teaparty Chairs; plans from Scott Morrison.

My back ground is that I'm self taught, grew up on a farm where my grandfather made furniture for his house and his son's families. He was never in it commercially. I started learning from him and have been woodworking off and on for the past  3 decades. After making all things with right angles and all things square, I took the leap and did the sculptured rocker using Marc's website guidance last winter and I haven't looked back since. Doing that project really got the juices flowing and I have since done the Maloof low back chair (2 of them), the bowtie stool from Charles Brock, and 3 sculptured barstools from Scott Morrison. 

My shop is well equipped and the biggest change for me the past 5 years was getting a quality bandsaw. This one tool has had more impact on the way I approach woodworking than any tool I've ever bought. All things square now are becoming all things curved and it's been fun and challenging. 

My wood comes from my family farm and my property. I harvest all my own wood and most is milled by me with a chainsaw mill. I mostly work in walnut and cherry, but have stashes of hickory, pecan, white oak, maple, sassafras, white pine, eastern red cedar, and some pear and holly. 

So I'm posting on here to challenge myself. I grew alot when I bought the Sculptured Rocker Project from Marc and I figured taking the leap to have my work critiqued and evaluated will only make me better. Please feel free to critique, the good and the bad, that is why I'm posting this.

Here goes.......

Here's the plan and the picture of the desired outcome

Templates

Seat blanks, one walnut and one cherry. The maloof joints are all cut, seats waiting to be shaped. The plan does not call for taking out a chunk from the middle board on the seat, but I've learned with other sculptured projects that this will greatly reduce the time shaping and the amount of dust

.

Leg Blanks, waiting for final sizing for width of maloof joint in seat. Dado's are the next step before we start band sawing shapes.

 

So, that's were I'm at now, hope to be back with some progress shortly.

[wdwerker]

Welcome !  Looks like an interesting build  !

[..Kev]

Having built the rocker, I can see a lot of similarities.  It really is a fun build!  I'm looking forward to following along!

Welcome to the forums!

[Chestnut]

Welcome! Interested to see this one progress. You seem pretty far long in your woodworking journey and after a point it gets more difficult to get worthwhile critiques. In MN they do a judged show once a year Cremona recently entered and shared the critique on his highboy. I was happy to see the constructive comments he judges gave him Way more detailed than what he'd have gotten from social media.

I can't really see the grain in the pictures but focusing on grain matching can have a huge impact on the final outcome. I've only been doing this a few years and it's what i struggle with the most. Also you mentioned working a lot from plans, moving outside the comfort zone again to self designed projects using what you've learned design wise from the plans can help think about projects in a different way as well.

[pkinneb]

Welcome! I look forward to following along. I found Scott's video's very helpful when I built my sculpted bar stools last year.

[Bmac]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

Welcome! Interested to see this one progress. You seem pretty far long in your woodworking journey and after a point it gets more difficult to get worthwhile critiques. In MN they do a judged show once a year Cremona recently entered and shared the critique on his highboy. I was happy to see the constructive comments he judges gave him Way more detailed than what he'd have gotten from social media.

I can't really see the grain in the pictures but focusing on grain matching can have a huge impact on the final outcome. I've only been doing this a few years and it's what i struggle with the most. Also you mentioned working a lot from plans, moving outside the comfort zone again to self designed projects using what you've learned design wise from the plans can help think about projects in a different way as well.

Thanks for the input. I agree, I'm pretty far along in my journey and I understand it may be difficult to get worthwhile critiques in a forum, but doing this is getting me out of my comfort zone and that is a good thing.

Your points about grain matching is just the kind of stuff I'd love feedback on. As for using plans, it's funny that I just started using them the past 3-4 years. I think it has a lot to do with my affinity to do chairs. Designing my own chair would be a challenge.

3 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

Welcome! I look forward to following along. I found Scott's video's very helpful when I built my sculpted bar stools last year.

Yes, Scott does a nice job.

It was your journal last year on the stools that inspired me to do mine. My 3 stools took a few months and were a challenge. I think you had stools without arms, correct? My plan included the arms.

[wtnhighlander]

Glad you decided to join the party! This looks like a really interesting journal, and a cool chair design.

[Chestnut]

2 minutes ago, Bmac said:

Designing my own chair would be a challenge.

I have to go back through and watch again but marc's videos on dining room chairs has a good design section in it. I'd love to find an instructor that was willing to put a course on just design. It'd be awesome for Marc to put it out but i understand that teaching design is difficult and may not be his thing. I should send him feedback or a suggestion see if he is receptive to it.

[Chet]

Welcome to the forums

Chairs, rockers, stools and such are things that at this point I have no real interest in building.  But I do enjoy watching the process of other people's building process, you can still pick up ideas for other projects.  Already, the idea of leaving material out of the seat that is just going to get removed down the road...

Looking forward to following this.

[Bmac]

Made some progress today. Ran in to a few minor hiccups but should be able to work through. Plan called for seat dados to be 2 1/4" wide, then the video simply said to use a paired Maloof router bit set to finish the joint. Not thinking I grabbed the 1/2" rabbet/roundover combo I used in the sculptured rocker and completed the seat side of the joint. I then moved on to the legs. The legs blanks are BIG and I had roughed them out to about 3" x 4" wide and planned to take the down to 2 7/8" to fit the leg joint (as the plan and video called for). Then I realized my leg joint is already 3.25" wide because I used the 1/2" rabbet. I have another Maloof router set that has a 3/8ths rabbet bit, and I quickly realized that was the bit I should have used because that would have given me the 2 7/8" width. So...

Quick reset, the stock I glued the legs up with was 10/4, I had resawn that to slightly over 6/4 for my leg glue up. I grabbed the resawn pieces and glued one of each back to each leg giving me enough stock to fit my larger seat joint and creating a pretty invisible glue joint. But this will keep me from having the original glue joint centered in the leg. Morrison stressed this in his video, he said to try and keep the glue joint for the leg centered for a more harmonious look. That's a look I will not achieve and the only way to achieve that would be to toss out the seats and start over. I couldn't make my self do that so here are some pictures of some of the "off" centered glue joints.

I think I can live with that. Also I've noticed with other sculptured pieces I've done that when you do these types of glue ups they even become more invisible with the shaping. I did a glue up in the rocker headrest and the plans called for glue ups for the arms in the low back chair and the arms for the barstool. They look remarkably good. I will touch back on this mistake as I progress and we'll see if it was a good decision to move on.

 

Here are some other photos of what I got done today;

Outlined my legs on my now wider leg stock. Trying to follow the grain as best as I can. Think I nailed that here.

Leg joints finished and start roughing out seats. Kept away from the seat joint areas in my rough out, simply wanted to start blending together the three seat boards.

Legged up with HUGE leg blanks. Boy there is a lot of waste with these legs.

Cut the legs into rough shape with the band saw, now it's starting to look like a chair.

Next will be to start shaping the legs and fine tuning the fit of each leg to set joint. I'm real close on everything but I've got a little fine tuning to do for one or two joints. Everything comes real tight with clamps, but too tight to put together without clamps.

[Cheeset202]

Very cool build, look forward to following.  I built the Maloof Rocker last year and it was a great project to learn new sculpting skills.  Like you said there is a lot of waste when you build this style of chair!  I want to build some bar stools for my pool room so I look forward to following your build.

[Coop]

I really like the design and anything having to do with Tea Party has got to go good! Wecomcome to the forum

[Bmac]

Got a little more done on this project. Started shaping front legs and started to finesse seat/leg joints. Here's some photos of my progress;

 

Two legs with shaping begun. Festool RAS 115 and rasps did most of the work then used a Festool ROTEX 90 with a soft interface pad. Love using interface pads when shaping, work great! Also, love the RAS for initial shaping.

Still a little bulky but shape is starting to form. Glue joint starting to "disappear", esp where I've done a fair amount of shaping.

 

Below are photos of one joint, but this is typical with all the other joints on this project. In fact it's been typical of my past chairs with the Maloof Joint. This is the joint put together just with hand pressure and a few blows with a hammer.

 

This is a second photo, and the hold up is were it typically is for me, on the roundover, or at least that's my perception.

 

A little sanding and scraper work and then a little clamping pressure, looking good.

 

Hopefully I can get back in the shop in a few days, Shaping will be on the agenda for a few days.

[Cheeset202]

Coming along nicely, I had the same issues with the Maloof joint, just a little tweaking and they eventually fit perfectly.  I did most of my sculpting with sculpting wheels and rasps.

[Bmac]

Thank you for the clarification, I used rasps also, not files, I edited the post above. Got my terminology confused.

As for the sculpting wheels on the angle grinder, I've used those and they are good, but they produce a ton of dust and make a total mess in my shop. The Festool RAS 115 has some dust collecting ability, though not perfect, and when you use it with 25 grit paper it will chew up wood pretty fast. When I did my Maloof lowback Chairs I used the instructional video by Charles Brock and he is the one that touted the use of the RAS. Marc in his sculptured rocker tutorial discussed the RAS but he preferred the angle grinder. Having used both and having both I have been grabbing the RAS almost exclusively now. Also the RAS is not as aggressive, I think that really helps to get smooth lines/curves.

[pkinneb]

So Bmac in the photo below you would sand and scrap the area that is tight, lightly until you get the fit you want?

[Brendon_t]

Great progress so far, I look forward to following along. Not sure I remember watching one of these builds before but it looks very maloofish. I should love it.

 

Since it's in your original post that you make your own lumber, I would like to hear about your milling/drying strategy.  It often comes up about cutting drying and more info to draw on from people who are doing it successfully is always helpful.

[Bmac]

6 hours ago, pkinneb said:

So Bmac in the photo below you would sand and scrap the area that is tight, lightly until you get the fit you want?

Pretty much sand/scrap area to improve fit and then take it all the way home with clamping pressure.

The area I have trouble with consistently is were the roundover meets the side of the leg. If your eye follows the gap to the side of the leg you see the gap eventually disappears, when I take the leg out of the joint I see an area of shine/burnished wood. Also if I run my hand over the area the roundover has the slightest lip or edge to it. Likely from not having the router bit perfectly positioned. This lip or edge is always right at the shine/burnished area. In the past I've adjusted the height of the bit in the router to improve the fit but I can never seem to get it perfect. I have found it's just easier to do some minor adjusting. Once I adjust that lip/edge off it usually just about goes home, then clamping does the rest.

I will plan to show what I'm explaining in some photos because maybe someone has some insight for me to do this better.

[Bmac]

5 hours ago, Brendon_t said:

Great progress so far, I look forward to following along. Not sure I remember watching one of these builds before but it looks very maloofish. I should love it.

 

Since it's in your original post that you make your own lumber, I would like to hear about your milling/drying strategy.  It often comes up about cutting drying and more info to draw on from people who are doing it successfully is always helpful.

Ok, now this is a topic I love to talk about but have stayed out of the conversation in this forum. I know I've read different thoughts and beliefs on this here. Bottom line is if I have my preference, I much rather would build with air dried lumber.

I've milled my own wood for years, air drying and never worrying too much about it. When I bring my wood into my somewhat controlled shop environment my wood is usually sitting at 12-14%. A few months in my shop and I'm usually down to 9-10%. For projects I cut out my pieces and do rough milling and stickering in between. When I build I just know that I need to build with the idea that my wood will move, and shouldn't we all build that way?

This chair is a great example of were the wood will move and it really shouldn't affect the build. This chair should allow, for the most part, the freedom for the wood to  move.

I mill most of my wood at 10/4. This allows my to resaw for book matched panels and gives me good sized boards for chair builds. Also milling thicker minimizes the waste from my chainsaw mill. I'm not really a slabber and live edged slabs don't interest me much. Only live edge slabs when I've got crotch wood.

Wouldn't you love access to wood like this for hardly any expense? Just need patience. You can see I've got a straight edge on this log, makes it much easier to break down in the shop.

This is mostly walnut, has sat for 2 years.

[Brendon_t]

Thanks for the write up. How long do you typically leave your 10/4 stock in the shed stickered? 

[Chestnut]

I'm with you on preferring to use air dried lumber. It works slightly different but in a good way. I'd love to mill my own lumber but the thing that holds me back is time. It's so much easier to drive to the lumber store and pull off a stack of boards that are ready to go than it is to mill and wait for it to dry. I've cut up some small logs on my band saw for fun species like Boxelder or other non-comercial lumber.

I never knew how flexible air dried was vs kiln dried until i tried to break a small off cut from some air dried ash i have. I bent it in half and it still didn't break.

[Bmac]

40 minutes ago, Brendon_t said:

Thanks for the write up. How long do you typically leave your 10/4 stock in the shed stickered? 

The answer is typically 2 years, but it's more nuanced than that. I try to get 2 drying seasons. When I say drying seasons, I mean March/April to Oct/Nov here in the Mid-Atlantic. So if I mill wood and put it up in Feb, a year and a half later it should be good to go. Other important things to know is that oak tends to dry more slowly and I might leave that out a little longer. But oak is not a species I do much with, walnut and cherry are pretty easy to dry.

I've milled enough now that my stock is able to sit longer because I've got a good supply. But sitting longer outside doesn't get it any drier. The lowest I can get my wood outside is that 12-14% and that typically takes 2 drying seasons.

[Bmac]

18 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

I'm with you on preferring to use air dried lumber. It works slightly different but in a good way. I'd love to mill my own lumber but the thing that holds me back is time. It's so much easier to drive to the lumber store and pull off a stack of boards that are ready to go than it is to mill and wait for it to dry. I've cut up some small logs on my band saw for fun species like Boxelder or other non-comercial lumber.

I never knew how flexible air dried was vs kiln dried until i tried to break a small off cut from some air dried ash i have. I bent it in half and it still didn't break.

Yes air dried lumber is much more forgiving to bend and I think it retains it's color better.

Don't we all need more time. In the winter I cut for firewood and lumber and have access to the trees, so I usually put my woodworking on hold a little to get my lumber milled. Also milling is addicting, very addicting.

There is an unique satisfaction and sense of accomplishment when you can say you started with a tree and personally take it to a finished product.

[Brendon_t]

13 minutes ago, Bmac said:

 

There is an unique satisfaction and sense of accomplishment when you can say you started with a tree and personally take it to a finished product.

Agreed.

[Bmac]

Got back at it today.

To start, here's two pictures of the hang up I get with these joints. Right at the roundover.

 Worked them all today to get them fitting well.

Then I spent a lot of time shaping.....

Got the legs shaped and one of the stretchers shaped.

Worked the seats more also.

Hopefully tomorrow I can finish the stretchers and start working the backrests. A lot of sanding after that!