Dining Chairs In Walnut

[Chestnut]

Someone cursed me. I said I'd never make dining chairs again and burned my routing jigs and templates. A forum member commented that I'd regret that. Sure enough i got an order from both my parents and the in-laws at the same time to make new tables, and chairs to match. This was probably 18 months ago but a little girl named Hazel is slowing down my production speed.

I have not previously done more than post about the inlay for the table top https://www.woodtalkonline.com/topic/32466-whats-on-the-bench/?do=findComment&comment=442217. The table was a relatively quick simple project, a walnut trestle table sized to seat 6 comfortable 8 on the cramped side. I'll be making 6 chairs for this table. The second table is for my parents, it will be a square table that will pull apart to fit leaves to expand from seating 4 to seating 6-8. For this table only 4 chairs were requested as my parents have additional chairs available. The lucky part is both my in-laws and parents agreed on the same design of chair so that makes my job easier. Below is a picture that was the inspiration for the chair design.

I obviously am not the rustic type and i have been give quite a bit of freedom so I'm going to make a more elegant non-rustic version. The design started from the past chairs I made. I wanted these to be a bit less formal so I am reducing the rear leg height from the 46" that I used for my cattail chairs to ~38". I used our work plotter to print off fullsize paper plans so i could make templates.

I pasted the paper plans to plywood and cut out and shaped the template. From the templates i made routing jigs just like my last set of chairs.

I will attach toggle clamps and PSA sand paper to help hold the work pieces in place while routing takes place. The one modification was to put the side rail and front rail on the same jig. When i was making the cattail chairs the routing templates offered too many pucker moments. Making the template jigs larger will go a long way to reduce those brown trouser moments.

Once the routing jigs were complete material selection started. I have quite a large number of parts to pick out so I can only be so picky about material. Luckily I also have a lot of 6/4 walnut to work with. I"m making good effort to ensure that the grain runs along the back leg of the chair. Too much grain runout on these legs could cause strength issues long time. Beings that these chairs will not live in my house I am beefing up the design a bit.

I use the initial template to identify the parts. Using white charcoal pencil I trace out rough outlines leaving a healthy gap around the outside. The rear and front legs will be ~1_1/4" square. Below shows my attempt to reduce grain run out. The walnut I bought was #1 com so there are some defects. I will be doing a bit of epoxy fills as some of the defects are a bit too hard to dodge. I don't want my waste for this project to go much over 10% so I'm trying to use as much as possible. So far I've been able to utilize a large amount of the boards with minimal waste and little compromise.

Some of the boards had some figure. I tried to capture the figure in the front rail that goes under neath the seat. I'll shoot to have the figured boards matched with the same set of chairs. It's likely that they figured chairs will work better with my in-laws table so I'll keep the straighter grained material for my parents chairs.

So far i have 3 hours into the project. I might try and track my time on these just to see how much is invested.

 

[Ronn W]

Tracking time  would lead to a very depressing result for me.  Good luck.

[Tom King]

I never keep up with time unless I'm charging for it.

[wtnhighlander]

Sounds like a challenge, Drew. But you are off to a great start!

[Coop]

You make way better use of your time than I do! This looks like a fun project. 

[roughsawn]

This is gonna be fun to watch. I'm particularly interested in when/how you contour the seats.

[Chestnut]

The time tracking is going to be unintentionally easy to track. I started an Audio book at the beginning of this project and only listen to it in the shop. I have a few books in line so I'll just add the times together.

9 hours ago, roughsawn said:

This is gonna be fun to watch. I'm particularly interested in when/how you contour the seats.

Sorry to disappoint i won't be contouring these seats. Been there done that, it's a lot of work and isn't worth it. This post does detail the process pretty extensively. It's the process that was used by Marc and some others to sculpt the maloof rocker seat.

[Mark J]

The bit about being cursed made me chuckle. 

If I were going to accurately track my time on a project, I'd need a precision calendar. 

[Chestnut]

I told myself i wasn't going to make a prototype. I tried really hard not to make a prototype. Then i realized i needed to make a prototype.

I wasn't sure in the end how the back rest was goign to pan out with the curved slats and the length of the seat as well as the chair height. Our families are short and the chair height needs to be a bit higher than originally anticipated. I wanted to make sure that the seat length would uncomfortable push into the back of the knee. I also wasn't sure where the best location of the back slats would be for comfort.

Step 1 find some cheap lumber, i was able to get both rear legs and all 4 rails from a chunk of 2x12 that has been sitting in my shop for years.

Step 2 was to put my router jigs to the test. They ended up working great, except i need to add some more clamps to the rear leg template.

3 clamps on the leg wasn't enough and a few times the template bit shifted the material and caused some issues. It was mostly on the end closest to the camera where there is a good 8" of leg extending past the last clamp. The picture above shows the 2 clamps close together and this end didn't have issues.

Step 4 was to cut the angle on the rails for the taper from the front of the chair to the rear. I also needed to layout joinery and figure out how the tenons will interact in the rear and front legs. The rear legs are a bit easier as i have more space to work with. Which is good as the rear leg connection is going to be the more highly stressed connection.

I ran out of 8mm tenon stock so i took a break and milled a bunch from some awesome rift grain ash scraps. Minimal grain run out and air dried material should provide some excellent strength.

Once the joinery is cut the chair can be assembled. While assembly was happening i cut some material to make the curved back supports.

I did bent lamination for this part but I'm questioning doing bent lamination or cutting the back rests from solid stock. I don't really want to waste all the material but I also don't really want to waste all the time for the bent lamination...

Prototype assembled.

It was needed after all. The seat length was cut back from 16_1/2" to 15_1/2" as it was uncomfortable on the back of my leg. Additionally it was nice to determine that the back slats will need to be adjusted slightly. The top one will need to be pushed back and the lower one forward slightly. The third rest in the middle is an unknown. I'll have to run another slat through the bender and figure out where it needs to be.

[Tom King]

If it would do you any good, or be anything you would want, we have some Walnut school chairs we use.  There used to be a factory in a nearby town that built wooden school furniture.  I had an Uncle, died in 1982 with no children, who was a logger.  He carried a bunch of Walnut lumber to them and had a bunch of chairs, tables, and a couple of desks made from his Walnut.  We have all of that stuff.

Anyway, I can send you some pictures or measurements if you like.

I just took this in our Kitchen.

 

[Coop]

I think a prototype or two is  a wise decision and a good investment. Sure beats having your two sets of parents roll their eyes every time they sit down to dinner. 

[Chestnut]

15 hours ago, Tom King said:

Anyway, I can send you some pictures or measurements if you like.

Can you measure the distance from the seat back to the bottom of the first back rest? That lower slat location is the one that is making me think the most.

[Tom King]

Will do.   I'll take one to the shop and get some measurements and pictures in a little while.   I'll measure the depth of curve of both pieces.  They are comfortable to sit in.  I expect more than a little amount of design went into them.

[Tom King]

Sitting in one, and noticing how it feels, the curve of both back pieces, as well as location is important.  I can tell that much difference would be uncomfortable.

[Tom King]

[Tom King]

Curve depth of the back slats is 15/16's in their 13" length.  They're bandsawn rather than being bent.  13" between back uprights. The slats are set back a 1/2" from the front edge of the uprights.

Seat depth from projected line inside back to front of seat-15-1/4".

79.7 degrees is back angle.

Need anything else, I can get it.

Stellar wasn't much help, but felt like she needed to supervise.

[Tom King]

That 15/16" curve seems like an odd measurement, but I checked three of the chairs, and that's what they all are.  I allowed for the 1/2" setback from the uprights.  The 15/16" was the actual depth of the curve in just the slat.  I don't know the proper terms for the pieces, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

[Chestnut]

16 hours ago, Tom King said:

Stellar wasn't much help, but felt like she needed to supervise.

Megan appreciated her "supervision".

10 hours ago, Tom King said:

That 15/16" curve seems like an odd measurement, but I checked three of the chairs, and that's what they all are.  I allowed for the 1/2" setback from the uprights.  The 15/16" was the actual depth of the curve in just the slat.  I don't know the proper terms for the pieces, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Thank's those measurements are helpful. The 15/16" curve seems like a lot but I might be able to manage that. I'm leaning towards cutting the back slats from the 6/4 stock i have for the chairs. To keep the slats at least 1/2" think it'll be difficult but i might have a trick to make it work.

[curlyoak]

A custom builder is in essence building prototypes. And the prototype needs be done to a level of quality fit and finish on the first attempt. I don't build chairs. I would need  several prototypes before I was willing to do it for hire. And no one will pay for the prototypes. And it might be a rabbit hole that I might not find my way out. But I will enjoy watching these walnut chairs come to life.

[legenddc]

On 3/6/2023 at 12:45 PM, Chestnut said:

I told myself i wasn't going to make a prototype. I tried really hard not to make a prototype. Then i realized i needed to make a prototype.

I wasn't sure in the end how the back rest was goign to pan out with the curved slats and the length of the seat as well as the chair height. Our families are short and the chair height needs to be a bit higher than originally anticipated. I wanted to make sure that the seat length would uncomfortable push into the back of the knee. I also wasn't sure where the best location of the back slats would be for comfort.

I haven't made a chair and can't imagine making one without doing a couple of prototypes or having one already made to model it after.

It's awesome that you're taking on this project for your parents and your in-laws! I'd like to build some things for mine as well but the kids sure do slow you down. Looking forward to see these come together.

[Chestnut]

16 Hours into the project and template routing the rear legs is in full swing. After finishing the prototype I worked on breaking down the material and separating the rear legs from their boards. I had 20 rear legs to cut out and that went relatively quickly. I balanced optimum grain and minimal waste. I feel like the grain followed the curves of the rear legs very nicely and there are minimal areas that will receive epoxy filling. To cut the legs from the blanks, I initially jointed 1 face to have an even reference surface on the band saw. I then cut each leg out of the blanks on the band saw. To minimize waste blanks were nested which resulted in roughly 3 legs per blank. This picture shows all of the waste from cutting out 20 rear legs.

After the legs were cut out of the boards, i ran them through the planer to get them all to an even thickness. It ended up being around 1.2" thick or 0.05" thinner than designed.

The image above shows one of the worse case of epoxy fills. 4 of the chairs are going to receive an ebonizing treatment similar to what was done on this chair. So I'll likely use some of the pieces with the larger epoxy files on those chairs. Below shows the epoxy filling operation. Only 7 blanks needed fills initially. I will likely have to do a 2nd round of filling after the template routing as i expect some voids to show up that I wasn't expecting.

With the epoxy curing on those 7 legs I adjusted the rear leg template sled to account for the extra clamps as well as the change in thickness of the rear legs.

Then much router table work has begun. This is a messy job, I can only get the fence with my dust collection so close to the work piece before it gets in the way. As a result a lot of chips are sent over the edge of my router table onto the floor. This isn't a big deal as I can just clean it up later. The port in the fence does capture a good 85% of the chips and dust though.

So far i have 7 legs that have recived their template routing.

The finish off the router bit sucks and each one of these will need to get cleaned up further but that is to be expected. Before someone comments yes this is a whiteside bit I'm using so it's quality. An important step in the template routing is to keep a reference mark. I have a mark on the template that I transfer to each leg from the first face. That is then used to align the part to cut the second face. This mark will get used in the future to set up joinery locations. With legs like this it can be extremely difficult to figure out where joinery should go. The leghts of each rear leg are different so a centerish reference mark is critical.

More template routing to follow finishing the rear legs and then moving to the front and side rail detail.

[Chestnut]

1 hour ago, legenddc said:

I haven't made a chair and can't imagine making one without doing a couple of prototypes or having one already made to model it after.

If you have one to model it after that makes things a lot easier. I started with a design from scratch and some rough starting dimensions for the cattail dining chairs i made. Then I made 3-4 prototypes and they were critical at refining the measurements. For this build I'm leaning heavily on that successful design so fewer prototypes are necessary. The prototype was mostly for the differences in back rest design.

[Mark J]

I am thinking of ebonizing my next project, too.  A lot of wood turners do this.  One of the more well regarded turning forum participants speaks highly of Feibing's Leather Dye USMC Black.

https://fiebing.com/product/leather-dye/

It seems easy to apply, and comes ready to use.  I'm also thinking it will be less dependent on tanins (my project will be maple).  Unfortunately, I haven't tryed it yet, or I'd give you some personal feedback. 

[Chestnut]

Routing out the rear legs wasn't the most fun but it wasn't awful. The large sled with the clamps for handholds made climb cuts worry some than a smaller template. Climb cuts were necessary in a few locations where grain was just too backward to get a tear out free cut. I forgot to take a picture of all 20 rear legs together but just imagine the last picture above with 16 more. I did figure out a trick with my router table fence. The dust port is in the fence and beings that the sawdust kept getting throwing to the right I shifted the fence over a bit and it captured a lot more dust. With he port centered on the bit all of the dust needed to make a 180 hairpin curve to go back to the dust port.

The next step is to work on the front and side rails. I had the parts already identified so I used the miter saw to break the 10 foot boards down to length. I ended up with a stack of 30 parts that needed jointing on 1 face and 1 side. Following the jointing I set the band saw to cut the parts to rough width.

The problem is now that I used 6/4 material for the parts but I only need the rails to be 7/8" thick. Some of the walnut has some cool grain and figure so I set up the band saw and cut each blank down from 1.325" to 15/16" or just shy of 1/2" material removed. This was much more preferable than turning all of this wood into sawdust. I'll find plenty of uses for this material. I'm not sure what it'll be just yet but it's a relatively small amount.

With all the pats jointed 1 face, jointed 1 edge, resawn to 15/16" the next task is to plan down to 7/8".

A quick trip through the planer took the unstable somewhat messsy stack and made it nice and stable and neat.

After I was done with this task i remember that my table saw was burning on bevel cuts and was not giving me the accuracy i expected. I set up a gauge to try and determine what was going on.

It turns out that the table of me saw is not parallel to the trunion plane. The blade is higher in the front than the rear. I put a dot on the table saw blade and checked both the front and rear and it was pretty easy to measure how far it was out. It turned out I needed to add a couple washers between under the front table mounts to get the table in plane. Once that adjustment was in place the table saw cut a LOT better at 45 degrees.

Next up is to mark out the bottom profile on the front and side rails, rough cut on the band saw and template route. So far in we're at 25 hours, that includes table saw adjustment.

[legenddc]

Good catch on the table saw. Seems like something that could easily go unnoticed and just be a pain.

Would something like this help out with the dust from the template routing? https://www.woodpeck.com/free-hand-guard.html You might need to modify the wood base so you could fit the template.