Dining Chairs In Walnut

[Chestnut]

17 minutes ago, legenddc said:

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.

I'm sure after moving my table saw a few times it got knocked around and the slope of the table got knocked off. I made the miter slot parallel to the blade but never checked the table slop after moves. I also remember loosing the shims at some point that came with the saw.... oopps .

That may help but I've had bad luck reducing down to 2_1/2" hose on traditional dust collectors. Running that with a shop vac would probably work just fine. With the shape of the template it might get in the way especially if it's hard mounted and isn't moveable. The other problem i just noticed is it only accommodates 1_1/2" thickness. The 1_1/4" leg plus 3/4" template wouldn't fit underneath. If I didn't have to move the fence back 4-5" to allow for the curvature of the back of the leg my fence port normally doesn't let even the largest chip get away.

https://www.rockler.com/dust-right-router-table-dado-dust-chute

This product from Rockler would have been perfect. I could install a wye on my jointer drop and run a line over to it when needed. Honestly the number of times i run into this issue on my router table is limited. Additionally it was just the heavy larger chips that were getting away, minimal fine dust escaped the fence port. It took 5 seconds to grab the material on the floor with my shop hose. I have one of the compressible hoses (https://www.rockler.com/rockler-4-dia-dust-right-hose-3-l-compressed-extends-to-21-l) with the quick change handle (https://www.rockler.com/rockler-dust-right-4-quick-change-handle) and Bench Nozzle (https://www.rockler.com/dust-right-bench-nozzle)

It's a great setup for cleaning up around the shop. The 21' of length gets me most places i need to go and it coils up and sits between my out feed table and table saw nicely.

[legenddc]

I never looked close enough to realize it was only a 2.5" hose, not the 4" one.

The expandable hose and quick change handle/tool ports are great. I still need to pick up the bench nozzle and maybe the floor sweep.

[Chestnut]

6 minutes ago, legenddc said:

I never looked close enough to realize it was only a 2.5" hose, not the 4" one.

The expandable hose and quick change handle/tool ports are great. I still need to pick up the bench nozzle and maybe the floor sweep.

I'd bet it's targeted at users that are collecting with shop vacs at their router table?

[Chestnut]

With the table saw calibrated, I now have the confidence that the miters will be more accurate. I used to get a lot of burning when cutting with bevel angles and that has gotten a lot better. It's not perfect quite yet but good enough for now.

To get things started the blanks were jointed on their top edge. For joinery purposes the bottom edge is then blade parallel to the top edge by running all the parts through the planer. It is important for this specific workflow to have good center lines. I took each of the rail blanks and marked center lines using the routing jig.

When the blank is in the jig i marked the center line on the top edge as well as traced the shape to complete an initial cut on the band saw.

With the center line marked I can separate the side blanks in to piles of left and right. I separated them at this point for some continuity reasons. Some of the blanks had figure or knots and I wanted to ensure that the different grain patterns were equally represented so I didn't end up with 10 chairs that had crotch figure on the right side and strait grain on the left.

Once i have center line and curved marked I transfer the center line around the edge of the board so it's visible from all sides.

to cut the 7 degree angle on the side rails I cut all the parts on the left side of the blade. I put a center line on the backer board for my miter gauge. I cut the first miter with the marks lined up. Then i flip the board end for end so the same edge is against the miter gauge and cut the other end with the stop block folded down. The picture below shows the center line and the stop block and how it works out.

Beings that the sides are different instead of moving to the other side of the blade half of the angles are cut with the top of the rail against the miter gauge. The other half a cut with the bottom of the rail against the miter gauge. This is also why i haven't yet cut the curve out of the bottom.

10 sides were cut with arch out.

10 sides were cut arch in.

You can also see from this rail that some of the parts have good figure and why it'd be a bit odd to have 1 side with figure and the other strait grain. I have an even number of figured parts so 3 chairs will have some figure on the front and side rails. Once all the angles are cut, the parts go to the band saw to rough out the lower arch. Template routing to follow.

[Chet]

I am just catching up here but when doing the back supports have you given any thought to just making the bottom portion of your form and using your Vac bag.  you could make 3 or 4 or more forms and wouldn't have to worry about you clamp supply.

[gee-dub]

Following with great interest.  I have yet to make a single chair other than some Adirondack hybrids for outdoors.  Hardly dining room worthy ;-)  I even have a cache of poplar I picked up to do some prototype / practice chairs.  I would like to get comfortable making them.

[Chestnut]

15 hours ago, gee-dub said:

I would like to get comfortable making them.

I think you would take to them pretty quickly. They are essentially tables with weird angles. The only trick is getting used to the cumulative error and work in a somewhat linear fashion so you can adjust for that cumulative error.

[legenddc]

Keeping that many parts straight would confuse the heck out of me. I'm sure I would cut at least one of the rails backwards and not realize it until the setup had to be taken apart for something else. Having a small shop and constantly having to move parts from one surface to another would make keeping track of everything a nightmare. 

[Chestnut]

3 hours ago, legenddc said:

Keeping that many parts straight would confuse the heck out of me. I'm sure I would cut at least one of the rails backwards and not realize it until the setup had to be taken apart for something else. Having a small shop and constantly having to move parts from one surface to another would make keeping track of everything a nightmare. 

I did indeed cut 1 rail backwards. I forgot to mention that in my update. I have a larger shop but that doesn't mean I have a TON of space to lay everything out. A good trick in keeping this strait for chairs at least is to assign each chair a letter or number. Then label every part with that letter. Doing just this I realized i made 1 too many left rails and was 1 short a right rail. I did this double check before i changed the table saw blade angle or stop block and was able to replicate the part very quickly and easily.

With chairs the nice part is there are not a ton of parts each of these chairs will have 11 unique parts, sounds like a lot but consider a chest of drawers could have 50 it's a small number. Now that you mentioned that i'll try and take some pictures on my organization to maybe provide some tips incase it might help someone.

[Chestnut]

After the arch or curve is cut out of the side and front rails i spent an hour or so at the router table cleaning up using the template sled. It's not very exciting work. At this point the parts are cut to length and have their arch cut and templated, it's time to assign the parts to a chair. I have a set of 4 going to my parents and a set of 6 going to the in-laws. The finishes for each set are significantly different with the set going to my parents receiving a steel wool ebonizing treatment. This is important because it allows me to take parts that don't really color match well and stick them on the set of chairs that will be ebonized. It does create a bit of an organizational mess. To get around that the 6 chairs are assigned a letter and the 4 chairs are assigned a roman numeral. Each part received the chair designation as well as a written description of it's location on the chair.

Once the parts are assigned I laid out mortise locations. because each parts has the potential to have some error i considered each one unique and made sure that layout marks were transferred from part to part to ensure no mistakes were made. I marked the side rails first with a top and bottom floating mortise. I then transfered those lines to the rear legs using the main reference mark that I placed on each leg during the template step. If it was missed each leg once cut using the templatereceived a reference mark from the template for me to be able to have a point to measure from. The leg blanks were not cut to uniform length so this reference point is critical.

Going from left to right the first mark is the top of the side rails, then the top mortise center, next is the reference mark, final is the bottom mortise center. you can see the bottom mortise centers are slightly off. Each of the lines is transfered to each rear leg.

To keep everything organized the rear legs are assigned to a chair but an inside and outside face are also determined. I have marked all  this information on the ends of the leg for the time being.

With the rear legs marked out it's time to handle the front legs. The front legs for the chairs were mostly cut from the off cuts of the rails and legs. I was able to get 12 of the 20 front legs this way. The remaining 8 were cut from nice rift sawn strait grain knot free stock. The pieces were jointed and milled to final dimension and then cut to length. Once cut to final dimensions I assigned the front legs to a chair trying to match their color to the rear legs and rails. Once that is complete I identified which side of the legs would face out. All of this information is marked on the legs.

Once that is complete the marks for the mortise center lines were transferred to each leg.

With all the layout complete it is time to cut the mortises with the domino. I started with the mortises in the side rails as the fence needs to be adjusted to ~6 degrees. Once all the mortises were cut i laid out the parts to ensure that no mortise was missed before changing the fence angle of the domino.

With the side rails cut i set the domino up to cut the mortises in the front and rear legs. Once all the mortises for the side rails are cut I can stack the chair parts up per chair to start taking up less bench space. I will need to assemble each chair and pull measurements for the rear rail and back rest material. Due to cumulative error each i fully expect this measurement to be slightly different for each chair.

 

[Ronn W]

Looking good. Yeah its tough to keep  that many pieces organized.

[wtnhighlander]

Gotta admire the organization skills involved here. Pretty sure I would have made the equivalent of scrambled eggs by this stage.

[Coop]

Ain’t that the darn truth. Looking great Nut! 

[treeslayer]

Knocking it out of the park again Drew, looking great!

[Coop]

Drew, will you be doing a segment on the ebonizing process, I hope? 

[Chestnut]

Thanks, i feel like I'm not taking enough pictures to try and show the processes as good as i hoped. My shop time is in 1 hour segments, which is honestly good for productivity. I am able to plan out what to do next in the shop when I'm doing household chores and then once i get in the shop execute my plan. Trouble is I'm in the zone so i forget to take pictures.

So far I'm about 35 hours into this project and it's progressing well. At some point I'm going to hit the finish prep phase and i expect that to significantly slow things down. There is no way to batch out finishing prep to take advantage of economies of scale like template routing helps with.

15 hours ago, Coop said:

Drew, will you be doing a segment on the ebonizing process, I hope? 

I will be covering that process. That said it's going to be the same as what Pkinneb covered here https://www.woodtalkonline.com/topic/32333-michael-fortune-1-chair-build/?do=findComment&comment=439691

https://www.woodtalkonline.com/topic/32333-michael-fortune-1-chair-build/?do=findComment&comment=440087

[pkinneb]

Looking good!! That's a lot to keep straight  

[Ronn W]

On 4/10/2023 at 4:51 PM, wtnhighlander said:

Pretty sure I would have made the equivalent of scrambled eggs by this stage.

OK. so I like walnut regardless of how many pieces there  are but I really like scrambled eggs.  So, one way or the other,  I am offended.

[Chestnut]

So another good aspect of detailed organization is when you take nearly 2 months off of working on a project you can jump back in and it doesn't take too long to figure out where you where. Between the beginning of April to today our house has been under siege of back to back sickness. Recently i was finally able to steal some shop time. My usually approach to do an hour of work or so in the evenings isn't panning out like I wished.

After getting mortises in all the parts the next step is to get the rear legs cut to length. This is not entirely strait forward for the way I cut these out. I have to use centering marks to line each leg up on a miter gauge.

I ended up using my miter express for what felt like the first time and I have to say i really like it so far. It is a nice addition to a standard miter gauge. I put a piece of painter's tape on the sled and made some pencil marks to line up the mortise mark and the centering mark on the leg blank.

With the legs cut to size I can do a dry assembly. My next major task is to figure out the back rest and rail lengths as well as get them cut from material.

I also need to make a bunch of tenon stock. I have some really nice air dried ash that I'll use for this.

[Chestnut]

It doesn't feel like I've made much progress since my last post. Fortunately the pictures I took along the way tell a different story. After cutting the rear legs to size I want to complete some of the finishing touches for looks. I wanted an inside taper on all the legs to help lighten the look of the legs. The cherry chairs I made for our table don't have this taper and the look bothers me. Possibly enough that some day I'll cut tapes in the chair legs and deal with the difference in color. To try and ensure that the tapers were similar enough I made simple templtaes with stop blocks.

This allowed me to slap the template on the leg and at least get the pencil line the same on all the legs. It's kinda hard to see pencil on walnut but i tried to edit the image to make it pop more. The taper is pretty reserved.

Despite the minimal taper it had a LARGE impact on the look of the legs. The view from the front or back of the chair will show a taper.

Viewing from the side the taper will just make the leg look like it curves a bit more. I rather like the effect this produces as it kinda hides the taper but thins the bottom of the leg so it doesn't look boxy and bulky.

Stacked up the tapers add up and look pretty obvious. Organization marks really paying off.

I'll do a treatment on the top of the leg but I haven't figured out what I'm going to do there yet. I want to get the back slats figured out first as their spacing could have an impact. Following that being completed it was time to work on the back slats. This gave me a good opportunity to use some lumber that may not be great to use in other locations.

Some of this lumber was really narrow and had some odd defects. Cutting curves out of the material allowed me to cut away defects and utilize odd sized material efficiently. The parts were all milled square and then cut to length after a dry assembly of the chair gave me the length needed. I also cut out and used the drum sander to make another large batch of tenon material from some air dried ash. With the blanks cut to size joinery locations were marked and mortises cut. Cutting 120 mortises in 40 different parts was no small time commitment even using a domino.

With all the joinery done I did some layout on a back rest to come up with a curve. I wanted the curve to be a bit different so i put 10mm of tangent before a compound curve. If this doesn't make sense I made templates to trace the compound curve on each part. As you can see instead of the backrest meeting the rear leg mid curve there is a small return curve so the junction of the slat with the rear leg is square. I like the detail personally but it had a secondary benefit of allowing a significantly longer and larger tenon.

With the first slat traced the curves were cut. Then the chair was dry assembled for testing purposes.

I added the middle slat to get a feel for how the chair would sit. It was at this point i determined that if the same curve was cut in the top slat as the middle slat the middle slat wouldn't support the sitters back at all. If you forced yourself to rest against it the result would be uncomfortable. Using another top slat that was rough sawn to shape I was able to figure out that a 12mm shift of the curve forward would bring the slat in contact with my back and provide some support. The lowest slat would as a result be strait. This may look odd so I'm going to make some prototype parts to play with a curve on the lower slat for a compromise. I have a really good idea here I just need to test it.

I have all the top and middle slats cut to shape. The downside to band sawing the curve is that there is a LOT of cleanup work that needs to be done now. I used my 3/4" resaw king to cut the curves and that alone was better than using the 1/4" 3tip bi-metal blade. The cut quality of the bi-metal blade (woodslicer) was so poor compared to the Resaw King that cleanup of the curves was about 50% longer. 30 min per part vs 20.

My total time for the project is below. I also put a list of the books I've listened to mostly for my own reference. Work on the chairs stalled the last 2 weeks. I got a cold that has left me WAY too exhausted to even think about shop time. Last night was my first night feeling good enough to make sawdust.

Aurora Burning 15H
Aurora's End 15H
Red Rising 16H
He Who Fights With Monsters #9 12H in.
58H total time on project.

[Chestnut]

I got a good 6 hours of work in over the weekend, which was focused on getting the curved slats cleaned up and ready for the next step. Cleaning up the band saw marks was a lot easier on the parts sawn with the resaw king, thought I still had a few that were done on a 6 tpi bi-metal blade. It was also a lot easier to clean up the middle slats that are both narrower and have a less severe curve. Tools for the clean up at my spoke shave, which i don't love, cards scraper, the ones from TWW are excellent the shape is rather nice, and small block plane.

The inner curve of the slat was relatively easy to clean up with the spoke shave. Once i got the iron honed up a bit and figured out the right depth setting for the curves shavings started to fly. The spoke shave gave me a lot of good control over shaping the inside curve. I know a lot of people that would complete this operation with a spindle sander but every time I use mine I struggle creating smooth curves. I'm not super skilled with the spoke shave and always get some tear out or chatter. So following the spoke shave I clean up the face with a card scraper.

The back of each slat was a bit more complicated. The outside edge had a compound curve that returns to make the connection roughly perpendicular. I cleaned up this compound curve initially with the OSS to make it easier to blend the rest of the back slat into the return curve.

Once the return area is cleaned up I use my small block plane, I can't remember if it's a no. 101 or other? Using the small block plane here allowed me to take the roughly sawn convex curve and make it a nice smooth curve. Often there were high spots that were difficult to work out so a good trick is to use the plan cross grain working the high spot down and then return to planing with the grain. In general i could have used the surface off the plane here but the walnut had quite a bit of "character" areas with squirly grain that lead to tear out. So the surfaces were cleaned up with the card scraper.

I finished the surface clean up for all 10 top rails and all 10 middle rails. I still need to clean up the edges and put a round over on all the parts but I'll likely do that when I do finish prep on the parts just before assembly. I'm not impressed with the card scraper surface quality and there are still a few minor defects to clean up. All of these parts will also get sanded with 120 grit and 180 grit paper.

Finishing those parts I did a dry assembly of the chair to figure out the lowest slat. Here I'm making a decision between aesthetics and comfort and siding with comfort. Putting a curve on the lower slat will result in that slat not making contact with the user's back. That's not uncomfortable but in my testing the chair gets more comfortable if that slat is left strait and is allowed to make contact with the user's back. I don't have pictures of this but will cover it again I'm sure.

[Coop]

Lower slat - I bet aesthetics is in the eye of the builder only. I vote for the comfort of the diners. These are looking darn good bud! 

[Chestnut]

Another month has passed work is progressing slowly on the chairs. In my last update i noted how i cleaned up the curved back rests. This was the bulk saw blade mark removals. After they were cleaned up all of the back slats got a round over and then were finish prepped. I didn't take many pictures of this because sanding is boring but here is a stack of the finished slats. I like how the round over softens the look of the edges on a curved part.

Once the back slats were done it was time to think about assembly. The top of the rear legs were still just square and I wanted to dress them up a bit. With the location of the top back slat there isn't enough room to do a long taper or large round over. I had an idea to cut in a pyramid shape that is commonly found on craftsman style furniture. Instead of doing a shallow angle though I opted for a 45 degree angle to really make the design element pop. I am VERY happy with the out come. I feel it adds a great aesthetic to the back legs of the chair.

With that design element cut in to all 20 legs it was time for assembly. I know I've mentioned having a little one at home and juggling sickness etc. I've gotten really good at squeezing a few min in the shop here and there to keep progress moving. Unfortunately for a glue up that's not a great idea. The first chair back that I tried to glue up got interrupted by an immediate need for my time. This caused me to rush the glue up to be able to put my attention elsewhere. In the back of my mind i knew something bad was going to happen because of my rushing. Got the back legs with slats in the clamps everything looked good, mistake averted!

FLASE! The next morning i went down stairs to remove the clamps and once taking a look at the chair back got quite irritated. I had glued the back slats on backwards so they curved into your back. Luckily it'd only been about 10 hours since i put the glue on so the joints hadn't had their full time to cure. I was able to take my parallel clamps and spread the rear legs apart breaking the joints free without damaging the wood. The glue was still pretty flexible and didn't have a good bond at this point. I was able to switch all the slats around with out creating any major problems. Though with this chair I used epoxy for the 2nd glue up as some of the joints were a bit on the loose side.

The rest of the assembly went uneventfully. I have been able to get 2 chairs assembled thus far and am working on a 3rd. My plan is to make the seats all in 1 go as they will be relatively simple panel glue ups. Below are some pictures showing details of the chairs.

The last picture shows the side of the seat. 6 seats will be walnut with 4 QS red oak. More details on this to come.

[BillyJack]

Pictures not showing..

Take your time and enjoy it. I spent all those years building with deadlines. I can’t remember most of the jobs, just the ones that gave me fits..

[Mark J]

Can't see the pictures, either.