Designing a Chair then Building it

[Bmac]

Well, a week away, back in town now and had a few minutes in the shop last night. Here's what I found out about the build so far;

First the 5 degree angle between the seat and backrest was not comfortable to me, recut to 10 degrees using the same process of cutting along line on bandsaw and truing up with flushcut router bit. The 10 degree angle feels much better. This is the angle I was planning to use anyway but I wanted to see how a lesser angle felt. Always good to go through the process to learn.

Second, you'll see in the photos below after I tried on the backrest that the chair does not look balanced. The backrest looks too small and the seat and legs look to clunky. I was tempted to just scrap the backrest and make one bigger, but I'm going to try shaping the lower half first to see if I can build a more harmonious look.

Thirdly, I'm making a punch list as I go of little things to change, these may change as the shaping progresses, meaning I may add more or even take some off the list. I'm already beginning to change my mind about the 13 degree angle in the back of the chair. As I've shaped that area it's working out.

Finally, the chair is very comfortable, what I'm dealing with is mainly cosmetic stuff.

Here's some photos of chair with backrest, I think this looks out of balance to me;

Here's the new 10 degree angle cut into the back supports;

Now this starts to get neat, I'm really shaping the legs aggressively and starting to round over edges on the seat and I'm starting to see some harmony build as I shape. What do you guys think? Does it seem a little better?

Shaping of the backrest, was worried I couldn't develop a nice curve here, but this is looking good;

So I'm thinking I'll need a bigger backrest but I'll continue to shape the chair to see if I can build in the harmony I was looking for. Here's a look back at the original plan, I've got some shaping to do to accomplish this;

 

 

[Spanky]

Bmac the chair looks great. But, the backrest looks alittle small for the chair to me. But, I’m not a woodworker!

[Bmac]

35 minutes ago, Spanky said:

Bmac the chair looks great. But, the backrest looks alittle small for the chair to me. But, I’m not a woodworker!

I agree, I will likely be doing a new one after I finish shaping the legs and seat. 

[wdwerker]

Don't judge the appearance straight on while it's on the bench. Sit it on the floor. If someone is laying on the floor they either dropped something or drank too much. Sit the chair on the floor and back away to get the proper perspective. Looks good so far to me. Back doesn't look too small I think.

[JohnG]

I agree with wdwerker.

The shot straight on makes the back look a little small, but then some of the other angles make it look just right.

[Bmac]

17 hours ago, wdwerker said:

Don't judge the appearance straight on while it's on the bench. Sit it on the floor. If someone is laying on the floor they either dropped something or drank too much. Sit the chair on the floor and back away to get the proper perspective. Looks good so far to me. Back doesn't look too small I think.

Thanks for your wisdom. You'll see in the photos below that it does take a different look from the angle you suggested.

17 hours ago, JohnG said:

I agree with wdwerker.

The shot straight on makes the back look a little small, but then some of the other angles make it look just right.

Agree also, it looks better from different angles.

 

So, taking the advice from above and doing a little more shaping here are some photos, I think it looks a lot better;

Still have a lot of shaping to do so I expect it to look even better as I progress, if I use this backrest I should be putting the oil/poly mix on it by the end of the weekend.

[Chip Sawdust]

Looking down on it the perspective is good. Straight on the back looks smallish. I sadly have no suggestions on what one could do with it, other than make a prototype, larger back and seeing what looks good. 

It might also depend on the look of what will surround the chair, its environment. That could change my mind. 

Either way, I admire your skill in putting something like this together. 

[Bmac]

Finished the shaping and sanding on the chair, As I was hoping, the more I shaped the better the harmony looked between the backrest and the rest of the chair. I was a little aggressive in shaping, but I like how it turned out. I still think I will make the backrest larger in future chairs like this.

Here are some photos;

Shaping the legs and blending them in with the seat created a much lighter look to the chair. Also aggressively removing stock from the underside gave the seat a upswept look that makes it look thinner.

On the backside of the chair I put in a few details, one purposefully and one accidentally. First, I inserted maple pieces into the backlegs where the leg dados came out. I did this to preserve stock and for strength in this critical area. This addition will show up much better with the finish on the chair. Secondly I added a nice scooped out detail to the back of the backrest. This was out of necessity since I exposed a domino here during shaping. I think that mistake resulted in a nice ending. Also, you can really see in this photo how much was taken off from the underside of the seat.

Finally a boring shot from above, but you can really appreciate all the shaping that was done on the legs from this shot.

I'll start with the finish this weekend and wrap this up after I show off the photos of the finished chair.

Thanks for looking.

[Spanky]

The chair looks great! You have done alot of shaping forsure.

[Bmac]

Chair is now in it's new home and the finish turned out great. Very pleased with the result even though I think I'll tweak the prototype some. Chair is very comfortable and looks elegant to my eye. I like the combination of the cherry with the maple and I think as it ages it will look even nicer. Grain matching also turned out nice with this piece.

Right off the bat, a few changes would be a deeper joint for the front leg. I cut the initial dado at 1/4" and I think to blend the leg in more with the seat I would cut it at 1/2". I did end up cutting an inch off each back leg to give the chair a little more front to back angle and in turn make it more comfortable, so that is a change. The backrest turned out nice but I do think I would increase the size slightly. Also, and probably more important than the size of the backrest, I'd like to build in some lumbar support. This was on my initial "want" list, but because I bookmatched the pieces on the backrest for grain match, I didn't have enough thickness to cut in some lumbar support. Also, if I stay with a solid wood backrest, making the backrest thick enough to give lumbar support might  make it top heavy.

So I'd love feedback, this is a prototype and I would love to refine it even more.

Here's the chair in it's new home in our foyer. Matches the oval table next to it very well.

Love the grain match in the back rest, esp the little figure/knot in the top outer corners.

Side shot, you can really see how much I scooped out this seat.

Also pleased with the grain match on the seat;

On this shot you can see I added some detail to the back of the backrest and I also added maple blocks into the joints of the back legs to give it a more rounded/beefy look.

Couple pics of the joints;

Final shot with the matching table next to it;

Thanks for following this journey with me as I looked into designing and building my own chair. This could become addicting. I think I'll make more of these over the winter, but right now I've got myself knee deep into my second Maloof Rocker build, and I'm loving it.

[Spanky]

Chair looks great!

[Spanky]

Bmac, did you build the table in the pic?

[Bmac]

Yes, figured the chair would be a perfect match.

[pkinneb]

Awesome job Bmac!! Those joints are really clean as is the rest of the chair. BTW you are making me feel like a real slug when it comes to time to completion you really need to slow down LOL

[Chip Sawdust]

I agree with ok; I can’t finish anything in that amount of time!

the grain matching is beautiful, it’s something I like to do in my work when possible. 

The straight-on shots still make the back look — something about proportions — but all the other shots it looks good so it may just be the camera lens fooling my eye. I like the extra shaping on the back of the back, looks good. 

Overall a lovely piece and it certainly deserves a spot in your foyer. And it looks great with the table. 

[Jeremy Gubbins]

On 9/4/2018 at 6:23 PM, JohnG said:

Can’t wait to see this come together! I was impressed by your previous chairs. 

I’d love to make a chair one day, but I already have a long list of projects and I’m pretty intimidated by the idea of making chairs. 

Me too...one day! Some beautiful work Brian. Chairs and ... those angles, they give me grief just thinking about them. One day though as John said, I might try one. If it's anywhere close to successful it might be the beginnings of a new lust! Scary...

These are stunning!

[wtnhighlander]

Chairs are on my todo list as well, but I'll probably start with a staked style. Seems a simpler way to deal with angles.

[Coop]

My first one will be a stool with no back or legs. 

[Bmac]

17 hours ago, Jeremy Gubbins said:

Me too...one day! Some beautiful work Brian. Chairs and ... those angles, they give me grief just thinking about them. One day though as John said, I might try one. If it's anywhere close to successful it might be the beginnings of a new lust! Scary...

These are stunning!

Jeremy, thanks for the kind words. I'm telling you what I'm sure you already have heard, chairs are addicting when you start building them. I also find that they are some of the most useful pieces of furniture to build. The angles on that chair were not too bad to deal with, not having lower cross supports below the seat helped with that. 

[gee-dub]

How did I lose track of this?  Thanks to Jeremy for replying to the thread and bringing it back on my radar.  The proportions really did work out.  I had some concerns about the joinery at the rear of the seat but, that looks just great.  People tagging along (me in this case) don't always have the benefit of our vision of where we are going .  Great grouping with the table and the location at the stairs makes a perfect setting (no pun intended).