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Athena's chairs

Started by mesquite buckeye, June 09, 2013, 09:05:12 PM

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mesquite buckeye

Just looking through my old photos and found this one of a kitchen table I made for my daughter in 2008. She has been bugging me for a while now for the chairs. Guess it is time to get them made.


The table 2008 American elm


 



An 8/4 piece of curvy grained Am elm marked for the back chair legs.


 


Closeup to show grain following curve of legs


 

I'll keep you up to date as it progresses.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Lud

What type of chair are you planning?   I've been building chairs this Spring.  7 of 10 are done and started last week on the final 3.

Make the joints strong!  Chairs get abused by their usage. 8)
Simplicity mill, Ford 1957 Golden Jubilee 841 Powermaster, 40x60 bankbarn, left-handed

Axe Handle Hound

Mesquite- is that table top a lamination of two layers of boards or is there a profile routed on that edge that makes it look that way?  Looks stout and being made of elm it should still be around in another 100 years.  I'm interested to see what the matching chairs will look like. 

mesquite buckeye

Quote from: Lud on June 10, 2013, 07:52:31 AM
What type of chair are you planning?   I've been building chairs this Spring.  7 of 10 are done and started last week on the final 3.

Make the joints strong!  Chairs get abused by their usage. 8)

Regular old chair that sort of matches the table. I plan to make them solid.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Quote from: Axe Handle Hound on June 10, 2013, 09:08:06 AM
Mesquite- is that table top a lamination of two layers of boards or is there a profile routed on that edge that makes it look that way?  Looks stout and being made of elm it should still be around in another 100 years.  I'm interested to see what the matching chairs will look like.

Yes, I had to laminate 2 layers to get a thick enough top to look nice. Started with 1" lumber, but it was so pretzeley that by the time it was flat, it was only about 5/8" thick, so I made another top and glued them up.  Quite a job, lots of 2 X 4 cauls and clamps, but it worked.

I wanted to do 3" legs on the table, but Athena insisted on full 4" finished legs. The table is very heavy, two guys have to work hard to move it, but you don't have to worry about the table wiggling when you put your elbows on it. It is rock solid.

We are hoping her great-great grandchildren can still use it.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Cutting out the legs today. The leg template to the left courtesy of algore's hockey stick climate model.

 


Legs rough cut out oversize to correct for defects in the lumber and warp. Here they are jointed flat on one side and ready to plane parallel.

 


Jointed and planed, ready to remark for final cutting.


 
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Front legs jointed and planed. Back legs roughed out a little tighter. ;D

 
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Backstraps cut and jointed one side.

 
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

By the time I got the backstraps flattened, they were down to just over an inch thick, too thin to cut a curved back, and since I don't want to start setting up a steam bending setup, I laminated the backstraps with some more material. Ended up with 2" thick planed flat.


 
Shown here squared, planed, and milled to width (3 1/2").

Next, I have to get the seat boards made. here they are shown rough cut and flattened on one side for planing. I will have to laminate and edge glue these, like the table top. No problem, that will make it match better.


 

Hopefully, this will be more interesting when the pieces start to come together.

Still have to cut out the seat rails.

For those of you who haven't used elm, the sawdust is a bunch of tiny needles, a bit irritating. ;D 8) :snowball:
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Hey, Lud: Did you post pictures of your chairs on the forum? I would love to see them.

Today, I started to glueup the seat boards. Two clamping directions and two layers. Here is how I do it.

 
This is the bottom layer. I forgot the wax paper to protect the cauls, had to put it in after glue on edges. Note to self....
Also, I had to rearrange the boards to make sure the interior board edges don't line up on the two layers. Really important to dry assemble before starting to have a chance to get everything together correctly.

 
Here it is all glued up and clamped up. Took a little rubber hammer tapping to get it all good.

More later.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Texas Ranger

We of the older generation had to learn things through repetition, and error, I wonder how much better a craftsman I would be had I had this type of instruction 50 years ago?

:P
The Ranger, home of Texas Forestry

mesquite buckeye

My dad had to figure everything out himself and had very limited tools. That limited how good he could get. I was fortunate enough to learn the basics from him and vowed to get the tools I needed to do the job right. Being able to actually have a true and straight board off a good jointer the first time is like magic if you never saw it before. Makes everything so much easier.

Used to be you could just look things up in books, and unless you really stretched, the projects were generally simple. The woodworking magazines are a wonderful addition. I particularly enjoy the technical, how to make the most of your tools and tricks of the trade offered in Fine Woodworking. Now, we have youtube, video instruction, internet searches for questions.

And of course, here is the forestry forum.

I especially love to see all the guys' work who do the whole thing from growing and harvesting the trees, making the lumber, then turning that lumber into something useful and beautiful that honors the life of the tree that the object came from.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Here is how the two layers are set up to keep the edges of two layers from lining up inside the glueups.

 
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

WmFritz

Quote

For those of you who haven't used elm, the sawdust is a bunch of tiny needles, a bit irritating. ;D 8) :snowball:

I thought it interesting that you mention this. My SIL cut a large amount of elm for firewood and found out he's allergic to it. To the point he doesn't want to even handle it. He gets asthma like symptoms from it and wants me to take it just to get rid of it.

Thanks for the photos and allowing us to be part of the project from home. ;)
~Bill

2012 Homebuilt Bandmill
1959 Detroit built Ferguson TO35

mesquite buckeye

Actually, it finishes up really nice, lots of chatoyance. Mesquite and ironwood are both big asthma inducers out here.

and you are welcome. ;D
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Lud



Hey Mesquite,   Lud here.. the chairs I built this Spring are a Sam Maloof Low Back Dining Chair.   Real strong joints and very comfortable.  Folks are sitting around in them long after the eating is done.  I kept increasing the carved seat depth in the latter seats so we can accomodate the flat bottomed and round bottomed guests both. ;D

I found it and tried to put in the link below?

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,64964.0.html

I don't seem to be doing it like others do.........  the thread was "Best way to get Ash to look like Walnut" and it's on pg. 3 here in General Woodworking.

I strongly recommend  finding  good, replacable sliders for the legs as that will reduce stress.  I predrilled the legs for the nail and drilled a shallow diameter for the rubber washer on the sliders I got from the box store.  They'll be easy to pry out when they wear out and need replacing.

Good luck on your project!
Simplicity mill, Ford 1957 Golden Jubilee 841 Powermaster, 40x60 bankbarn, left-handed

mesquite buckeye

Wow, super nice chairs, Lud. :o Mine won't be nearly  as fancy.  ;D
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Working on chairs again, looking for some figure for the back slats. There will be two in each chair. Here is the layout on another piece of the same tree, 4/4. Pretty crooked, hope to get somewhere between 3/8 and 1/2 finished.

 

I try to cut the pieces as large as I can without wasting wood so I can adjust for the best looking piece hiding inside the board. Here are the oversize pieces cut out, jointed flat one side and one edge and ready to go to the planer. Have to play a lot with feed angles, this wood loves to tear out where there is interesting figure. Also likes to plug up my dust control system with all the curly Q chips.

 

Ended up 5/8" thick after getting them all flat. That will work.

More later.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Now marking out the seat skirt boards. Trying to find fairly straight grain or a little arch to the top (prestressed). Took a little juggling to get the most out of my admittedly kind of funky lumber (The skirt boards are two lengths.).

 


Knots bad. Going around them good. ;D 8) 8) 8)

 
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

jamesamd

Very interesting,keep um coming!

Jim
All that is gold does not glitter,not all those that wander are lost.....

mesquite buckeye

Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Starting to clean up the glued up seats. Thought I would detail it out for those who don't already have these things in their bag of tricks. Nothing fancy here, but when I started out making the two layer glueups, it is almost impossible to both get it all tight and not have the layers shift and rotate a bit.

The first thing I needed to do is get a good parallel with one of the top side board edges. They start out looking something like this.

 


I run a snap line parallel to the board edge and inside enough that it won't try to bounce off the blade and give me a crooked cut.

 

I cut this freehand as best I can.

 


Here is a closeup of the edge ready to be jointed. What looks like a pretty straight cut is actually pretty crooked.

  

 

After it is jointed, it looks like this on a flat surface.

 


This is what the cleaned up edge looks like.

 
Pretty nice.

Next, I used the trued up edge to cut one end after marking square cut lines. These are not final, just to see how well the cuts are going.

  

 
That's it cut.


Then I use the fence to make the opposite edge parallel to the first squared one.

 



Then joint that edge to true up the saw ripples.

 


Then the other end is cut square.

 


And there we are, all nice and straight and trimmed, ready for more design work to start the fitting process.

 


I'll post more as it goes along. ;D
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Lud

I'm assuming you're not going to keep the seats flat..........what's your plan? ???
Simplicity mill, Ford 1957 Golden Jubilee 841 Powermaster, 40x60 bankbarn, left-handed

mesquite buckeye

This thing is definitely a design and tweak as you go deal. I have a pretty good idea of the finished shape and construction, but there is a lot of fitting and structural design still left. I just made everything with some extra strength and some cutting slop so when it goes together, I can make it work. This is definitely prototype stuff without a complete pattern.

Athena wants the seats hollowed out to make them more comfortable. I got a lancealot blade for the angle grinder, thinking it would be easier than chiseling, or trying to hollow adze it out. The cross grain is a bit of a pain to deal with, but that is also why it is pretty. The elm really likes to tear out if it gets any kind of depth of cut, or cuts into descending grain.

Also, the seat is still oversize at around 18 1/2 X 19 inches, so I can trim some of  the cruddy, uneven or ugly spots out of the seat blanks. I still need to work out the front to back dimension so that it is comfortable for most people. We get so used to having a one size fits all society, it is easy to forget that the ideal chair fits the person who will use it. That is a thought......

That would take the you're sitting in my chair thing to a whole new level.

Hey Lud, what are these sliders you are talking about? Got a photo?

I'm thinking of combining an interlocking tenon with a foxtail wedge blind tenon to lock up the skirt to the legs just for fun. I haven't ever done it, so everyone will see how it goes or doesn't go. A challenge at the least. ;D
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

mesquite buckeye

Back at it, trying to get one at least close to ready by Christmas (this year).

Here is the layout for the curved back straps. Making a template to mark up the pieces. Turns out that I will have to glue the cutoffs from the front to the back side to get the thickness and curvature I want. The outside radius is 21". The finished straps will have about 16 1/2" showing. I'm going to try to make them so the front edge of the backstraps is flush with the finished back leg stiles to make it more comfortable. This is a lot more work than I bargained for, but every stage I work through improves my skills. ;D


 
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

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