Popular Post Chestnut Posted October 1, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted October 1, 2019 It's been a while in the making and it's about time that I started a Journal for this build. This is going to be a combination of Dining Chair Builds and a small part of Rocker builds. I've been chatting with @Bmac for the better part of the last year getting advise on chairs and sculpting seats. I'll include portions of our conversation where it helped me a lot. I started out with a rough design. I saw years ago in a furniture store a chair with the negative shape of a cat tail in the back rest. It always appealed to me. The region I live in is dominated by wetlands that have 2 distinct species of cattail. My initial design is below. And prototype #1, I expect there to be 3 to 4 full prototypes. The overall look was a bit clunky and after incorporating a lot more curves into pieces that are in the same room as the chair it made more sense for the looks to be more refined. I didn't want to angled side aprons but after prototype #1 I don't see a way around it. The look of the chair was just wrong. I went back to the drawing board and added some curves and changed a few things and had model #2 made (left chair in the image below). The dimensions of the chair are 16" from front of backrest to front of seat edge. and 18" wide at the front. This made the chair look wider than it was long and I didn't like that. I want a bit wider of a seat for comfort sake. To make the look a bit better i pulled the front width of the chair in to 17" and resigned my self to angles and narrowed the back to 15" overall width. This made all the difference in the world. I pulled the headrest down some to leave the legs proud to shape some horns. I also narrowed the back rest a bit. The leg length is going to be 41" with the distance from floor to top of apron in the back being 1" lower than the front. This 1" lower will slope the seat back to make the chair more comfortable. I may end up goign further with this in the end, as i make prototypes I'll play with dimensions and see what I like. Bmac and I discussed the pros and cons of doing more drastic sculpting to lower the butt area or cutting the back legs. In the end there is goign to be a combination of both sculpting and leg cut. 1.5" lower represents a 5 degree negative angle which isn't drastic. Prototype #2, you can see the changed dimensions have a large impact on looks. This is also my very first attempt at sculpting out a seat. I'll post more on this later as I'm experimenting. The seat sculpting is tough. Getting things roughly symmetrical and trying to eliminate high spots becomes difficult. For my first attempt it seemed like I'd remove 1 high spot and create another. I tried to get some racking light on the chair to show the challenges with this technique. I'll be documenting more on the seat later as I'm going to do a second power carving alter this week. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeslayer Posted October 1, 2019 Report Share Posted October 1, 2019 I’m in Drew, your journals are some of the best on here. I really like the way your thought process works, trying different things, prototypes, design thoughts and of course top shelf craftsmanship 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted October 1, 2019 Report Share Posted October 1, 2019 I like the angles that you have added, it helps keep the design refined while making the chair the right size to be comfortable. Making prototypes is helpful in the long run because when you are happy with the final design you take it apart and you have templates for the whole project. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted October 1, 2019 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2019 38 minutes ago, treeslayer said: I’m in Drew, your journals are some of the best on here. I really like the way your thought process works, trying different things, prototypes, design thoughts and of course top shelf craftsmanship Thanks, I really need to give a 2nd shout to @Bmac as his advice has been very helpful. 10 minutes ago, Chet said: I like the angles that you have added, it helps keep the design refined while making the chair the right size to be comfortable. Making prototypes is helpful in the long run because when you are happy with the final design you take it apart and you have templates for the whole project. I'm going to make a full blown prototype out of the project material, I expect it to take about 15 BF of material but i agree it'll be worth every penny to trouble shoot problems before a batching out process begins. I'll probably make final templates for the final prototype just to make sure the templates achieve what I want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bmac Posted October 1, 2019 Report Share Posted October 1, 2019 I told you during our conversations you may well be headed down a path that is hard to leave. I made my first chair about 4 years ago and it has become somewhat of a obsession. The variety of chairs you can make is extensive and I learn something new with every different style of chair I make. I really look forward to following along with this build as I also have found your thought processes and and design ideas are always interesting. I think you are starting with a solid design and concept and the end result should be a great set of chairs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted October 1, 2019 Report Share Posted October 1, 2019 Nut, just following your builds exhausts me. This is gonna be a good one. I really like the cat tail motif. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted October 2, 2019 Report Share Posted October 2, 2019 Thanks for including you dimensions and thought process behind them. This is going to get me building chairs, eventually. I am especially anxious to see how you deal with creating the angle of transition from lower to upper parts of the rear leg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted October 2, 2019 Report Share Posted October 2, 2019 Nut, what will these be built of? I too like the cat tail design, really cool! Bmac also helped me on the sculpting and was probably the reason my seat didn’t become firewood! Didn’t you recently post that you had a RAS115 that was still in the box? Not to question your design or abilities as all of your work turns out fantastic. Just a thought though. While you’re adding curves, how about adding a little to the front legs, say something like this. Just a thought. Looking forward as always to following your projects. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted October 2, 2019 Report Share Posted October 2, 2019 2 hours ago, drzaius said: Nut, just following your builds exhausts me. This is gonna be a good one. I really like the cat tail motif. You and me both! I thought I was doing good getting my shop cleaned last night LOL 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted October 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted October 2, 2019 4 hours ago, drzaius said: Nut, just following your builds exhausts me. I hope that's a good thing. To be fair the first prototype was January of 2019 and the second was all last week. 2 hours ago, K Cooper said: Nut, what will these be built of? I too like the cat tail design, really cool! Bmac also helped me on the sculpting and was probably the reason my seat didn’t become firewood! Didn’t you recently post that you had a RAS115 that was still in the box? Cherry obviously . Ok well maybe not that obviously. These are the chairs for the dining room table i made a year ago which was cherry. The front leg and rear leg embellishments haven't really been settled on. I have been leaning more mission or A&C style with a blend of curves for added flair so They might just sport a heavy taper. I'm not sure yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chestnut Posted October 17, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted October 17, 2019 Not a huge update here. I've mostly been playing with patterns and trying to figure out some of the tricky aspects this build is going to present. I did a second sculpting of a seat and it turned out better than the first. Talking with Bmac I determined that I was trying to create too steep of a slope on the back edge of the seat and it was causing me to dig in a bit too much. I also approached the power carving a bit differently. All in all things worked out much better but i need to do more testing so i can get each seat more uniform. One of the key things stressed by Bmac is to do pre-carving. In the image above you can see the outline for the seat. This goes to the band saw and gets cut out. The pommel area also gets shaped at the band saw cutting on an angle. The boards just right of center get traced and cut after the center. The outside boards I shaped free hand with the band saw but after talking to Bmac he mentioned power carving them before gluing the seat up. I can see how this would be a big benefit and I'm going to try that on my next seat and cover this in more detail. I got the cherry for this project last week and have it acclimated and stacked in the shop. While I've been working on the Roubo I've also been cutting out and shaping the templates for the chairs. I printed details from my cad drawing to scale at work. I had to stitch together 11x17 sheets to get the sizes i need. After i got them all stitched together I secured them to some 1/4" ply with spray adhesive. I won't be using these for template routing, well maybe. I might make some template sleds, or I might just use them to trace lines, cut to the line on the band saw and shape with hand tools. Not sure. With some of the sharper curves I'm probably goign to have to do the template routing method. These will for sure help me determine grain layout on project parts. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted October 17, 2019 Report Share Posted October 17, 2019 Drew, have you tried the technique of drilling "depth wells" at predetermined locations in the seat to use as guides for the carving wheel? Might help make the result more symmetrical, even when removing bulk with a saw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted October 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2019 14 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said: Drew, have you tried the technique of drilling "depth wells" at predetermined locations in the seat to use as guides for the carving wheel? Might help make the result more symmetrical, even when removing bulk with a saw. I was going to look into that as well as just throwing a strait edge across and using offsets and measurements to keep things similar. I also want to create a template that I set on top that could give me horizontal information as well, like outline and a shape for the deepest part ect. My one hesitation with the drilling is what happens if my drill bit goes a bit too far.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bmac Posted October 17, 2019 Report Share Posted October 17, 2019 I've used both techniques and much prefer the bandsaw removal preshaping technique, but both will work. The bandsaw technique gets you real close to symmetric reduction if your cuts are accurate. As for symmetry, you don't need to be exact. Your eye doesn't pick up little discrepancies, feeling the seat with your hand picks the discrepancies up way more than your eye. For symmetry get it looking symmetrical to your eye, then feel it with your hand marking high spots and reduce until it feels acceptable. The soft foam interface pads are great at helping get things smoothed out and more symmetrical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted October 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2019 13 minutes ago, Bmac said: As for symmetry, you don't need to be exact. Your eye doesn't pick up little discrepancies, feeling the seat with your hand picks the discrepancies up way more than your eye. For symmetry get it looking symmetrical to your eye, then feel it with your hand marking high spots and reduce until it feels acceptable. The soft foam interface pads are great at helping get things smoothed out and more symmetrical. I'm not quite close on symetry yet. It looks uneven. I was goign to use a quick template like Marc does in the rocker video just to give a good starting point. I was hoping to make more progress on both of my current projects but it's still in the peak busy time of year for me. It's also peak fishing season and i haven't been out once yet.... I should move my boat further in the driveway so i can't help but hook up to it and take off. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post drzaius Posted October 17, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted October 17, 2019 2 hours ago, Chestnut said: My one hesitation with the drilling is what happens if my drill bit goes a bit too far.... Spackle 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted October 27, 2019 Report Share Posted October 27, 2019 Just want to say that none of the above techniques is mutually exclusive. Guide holes are what I use to turn those suspended forms, but I also use a straightedge and depth measurement from a datum. With these you can still use bandsaw pre-shaping and check your work as you go against a template. As to drilling a hole too deep, yeah, don't do that. I check and re-check position and depth, and my target depth is 1/4" short of the final surface. For a large complex curved seat surface this is going to be a lot of holes with a lot of different depths, though. So I won't be surprised if this is not the route you choose. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chestnut Posted October 29, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted October 29, 2019 I had a little bit of time between operations on the bench so i decided to get to work on routing templates. I don't want to do much template routing but on duplicating multiple chairs there really isn't any way around it. I have the paper templates mounted to 1/4" ply and shaped everything back to the lines. My idea was to make some routing sleds with toggle clamps that would allow routing of parts and easy swapping with out having to utilize double stick tape. To make the routing sleds i am going to attach blocks to a piece of 3/4" plywood. The block will act as a reference for the work piece, a fence of sorts, and it will also hold the toggle clamp that will hold the work piece in place. In the picture below I'm using the template to set the block locations. To attach the blocks I used CA and activator and to provide a more secure connection included some wood glue. After everything has taken some time to try I'm going to reinforce the blocks with a couple screws to make sure that they don't break loose during a routing operation. After the blocks are placed the sled was taken to the band saw to be roughly cut to shape. After the sled is rough cut I'll take it to the router table and route the edge to the 1/4" template. This particular sled is for the rear chair legs. As mentioned above both sides of the legs will end up being template routed. So after this side of the sled is shaped I'll attach the template to the other side of the sled and shape that edge to the template. This will be more clear when i work the first piece. Remaining are the rails that connect the chair legs together. These were attached to the cutoff piece of plywood with a fence glued behind. All of the rails will have 1 strait square reference edge so they will only be routed on one side. The backrest panel is going to be difficult, I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to manage it. I'll figure it out hopefully there isn't too much trial and error necessary. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted October 29, 2019 Report Share Posted October 29, 2019 I was watching a series of videos on FWW's site with Timothy Rousseau. He was doing a lot of router work with sleds similar to this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chestnut Posted December 28, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted December 28, 2019 @Bmac I worked on these yesterday and will all day today. Things are happening! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bmac Posted December 28, 2019 Report Share Posted December 28, 2019 6 hours ago, Chestnut said: @Bmac I worked on these yesterday and will all day today. Things are happening! Can't wait for the pics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chestnut Posted December 30, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted December 30, 2019 I want to make sure the seats end up being roughly the same so I took the template for the guild rocker seat and glued it to a board. I'll cut out the open side and use that as a template when I need to create the carved area on the seats. I also trimmed the bottom side ( the solid paper side) to the desired edge of the seat. This will allow me to get each seat close to identical. Well close enough. Each one of these chairs is going to be slightly different there is just no way around that. After that I finished my leg routing jig. I attached the clamps to the jig and added some adhesive sand paper to make sure that the leg blank wouldn't move. After I got everything set up I gave it a test run. I managed to make 2 near identical legs both of which were perfectly square in the joinery section. The trial did show me a few places where the jig could be improved. The ends of the back rest area end up being too far from the clamp and the router bit causes a bit of deflection in the wood. It's not a lot but it's enough that it makes the routing operation sketchy and caused some issues with cut quality. In the picture of the jig above I'm going to add another block and clamp to the side closest the camera. Once i get everything ironed out I'll give some more details on the jigs in use. The next major item to make is the bent lamination jig for the back rest. I thought about making the back rest bend in 2 different planes so it would support the lumbar and also cup the back, but just thinking about it gave me nightmares so i figured doing it would be even worse. So i abandoned that. I printed the back rest template from the guild dining chair plans and decided to stick with curves only in 1 plane. I'm making the bending form a bit different from other methods I've used. I read an article from FWW about making bending forms and from it i realized there is a better way than using solid lamination of plywood. The form started like all other forms I put the paper template on the front, cut out the negative shape on the band saw, then cleaned back to the lines. The change or difference is that instead of building up each layer with solid plywood, I glued pieces of wood as braces in between. The wood I ended up using is cedar scraps, I planed them clean to an even 1/2" and used 2 glued together to add a 1" space between each piece of plywood. This allows me to save a TON of plywood. Not only was I able to make the bending form more stable and stronger this way but it allowed me to use scraps I needed to dispose of, and it made it lighter. My form needs to be 8" wide and being as large as it was using solid ply it would have weighed far too much. Here is a shot of the bending form that shows the structure well. Another trick from the article is to use flexible cauls that get glued together with epoxy. These cauls will bridge any gaps that may be created due to imperfect shaping. Knowing what I know now and how well these cauls will bridge the gaps I'd have gone with 3 rows of bracing instead of 4 to save even more weight. I could have gone thicker with them as well and eliminated a row of plywood. Beings that the bendable cauls need to be glued together I'd need to simulate a true run of the form. So i planed done some redwood scraps that were destined for the fire pit to act as filler and simulate a back rest. If i didn't add material inside the cauls would glue them selves to a shape that wouldn't work once you added the laminations for the back rest into the form. This wood won't be wasted as I'll do a trial run with the redwood to see how the bending form works. I will also use it to figure out how I'm goign to cut the negative space out of each back rest. To create the cauls I used 1/8" mdf or hardboard, I'm not sure the difference between them, but it's a flexible material. I spread epoxy on the material and in hindsight may have needed to add more than I did. The surface absorbed some of the epoxy and I'm left wondering if I got a good bond. I'll find out tonight when I strip the form. My bending form did have some gaps in it. In the picture below I added some cork in areas where the hardboard was unsupported in my dry run. I also added some blue tape towards the ends where again things weren't clamping as well as they should. This is where it sits. I'm waiting at least 24 hours for the epoxy to cure. I should get a hardener that cures faster but that would reduce my open/working time. I expect it's going to take me 2-3 weeks just to cut the laminations, sand them to thickness, bend them, and then clean up the finished product. My goal thickness is 1/2" for the backrest. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted December 30, 2019 Report Share Posted December 30, 2019 2 hours ago, Chestnut said: Each one of these chairs is going to be slightly different there is just no way around that. Thats the difference between what we do as a hobby and buying manufactured furniture. Plus it is more fun. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chestnut Posted January 6, 2020 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted January 6, 2020 So i spent a bunch of time trying to figure out various parts of the dining chair this weekend. I wanted to get prototype #3 done and I'm glad that I did. I made a lot of good progress and then it all got thrown away. I struggled for a long time trying to figure out how to do the joinery for the backrest. The angle at the top comes off of a curved portion and the bottom has an odd angle and is in the middle of a curve. I ended up figuring out that I could scribe 2 side pieces to the curve of the back rest that would allow me to make a jig that would clamp on. Between the 2 side pieces I managed to make a flat area that was perpendicular to the bottom of the back rest. This would allow me to use the domino to cut a mortise. A person could make this a bit larger and use a router as well. The tabs on the sides got removed they were just there to hold every thing in place while I fasted the brace between the 2 sides. This worked out really well. I centered the domino on the back rest and was able to plunge in quite a large mortise. both ends of the back rest were done this way. The top side had a similar jig but the angles were different. I ended up getting a fer angles off and there was a bad gap when i glued everything together. This is what a prototype is for. After I got the back rest figured out I did another seat sculpting. I took my template for the seat and used that to outline the shape of the seat. I then used the band saw to do some pre-sculpting. For seats like this I find it best to use an odd number of parts. This allows you to cut a center that has an easy to cut shape. It's a simple dish with the corners knocked off. This shapes the seat area and the pommel. Using the center you can then scribe and cut out the 2 parts adjacent to the center. Take care not to cut behind the lines that you have drawn for the outline. The right side of this part looks a little weird for this reason. It's possible to use wide boards to make the seat this way. You will just have to rip those wide boards into smaller pieces to make the parts easier to pre-sculpt. It would be possible to do this with out pre-sculpting but it would be a LOT more difficult. With 3 parts cut i put the seat together and drew on a few guide lines where I wanted slopes to go and get a general idea of the seat. I also scribed the middle side pieces to their neighbor. With those lines determined I took pieces 2 and 6 and sculpted them with the RAS before assembly. This allows you do see lines of the side end and top to have an easier time sculpting. Thanks @Bmac The tips on sculpting really make a difference. I like the idea of sculpting as far as you can before glue up. After all pre-sculpting is complete. At this point the seat feels good and all that is left is cleaning up and removing a few high spots. After this I glued the seat together and then did the final sculpting. I used the RAS and the goose neck scraper. I know Bmac likes the RO90 here but the scraper does such a dang good job I'm not sure that I'm gonna get the RO90. I go the chair together and brought it upstairs to try out. I wanted to play with seat height to see what was comfortable. This chair I made to 17 3/4" tall with the table at 30 1/2" it's a bit too short. The previous chair at 18 1/2" felt much better. This reinforces the 11_1/2" to 12" difference from table height to chair height that I've always used. It's better for the chairs to be taller than shorter. Here is where I throw all of the progress away. The backrest is nice but after sitting in the chair, Megan liked it ok but said that she didn't care about it. The curve out is a LOT of work the joinery is miserable and it'd add hours to each chair. In the end she said she doesn't like the look and told me to scrap it. I'm really glad we had the conversation at this point and not after I had a bunch of back rests made! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bmac Posted January 6, 2020 Report Share Posted January 6, 2020 Great progress, even though you ended up scrapping it the learning is going to help in the long run. Seat looks great. For the curved backrest, and I know you don't plan on doing it but I had some thoughts I'd share anyway. The lamination makes the joinery much more difficult, not impossible but definitely more difficult. Cutting a curved backrest out of a solid piece with the joinery already done before cutting out the shape is a much easier approach. With that said, I think with some more fiddling with your jig you would have eventually gotten the joint right with the laminated piece. Looking forward to following your progress! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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