kirkpoore1
Old Oak
OK, they were started in the summer, but there's no way they're getting done this month. As many of you saw, I recently got a big stack of wood delivered:
I need this much because I have a small side business making furniture for my medieval group, plus any custom work that comes along. So right now I'm starting getting ready for our Christmas event, and first up is a batch of Dantesca chairs and a larger batch of folding stools. I actually started on the chairs a couple of weeks ago, cutting out the leg blanks and the rails. The legs have been shaped, the centers cut to half thickness, the pivot hole bored, and the curve cut to size with a pattern on the shaper. No pictures then. But since last weekend was a 3 day weekend for me, I got out in the shop on Friday and started working:
First off was sanding. A lot of sanding:
When you've got 26 sycamore leg pieces (including two spares) being worked at two grits, it takes a while.
And with the fine grit belt you have to stop and clean it with the rubber block frequently.
The inside curves are done on the spindle sander:
The spindle also needs cleaning frequently.
After sanding it was on to the shaper. The outside curves have two decorative grooves in them, so each leg needs four passes:
After grooving came edge rounding:
Again, four passes per leg.
The red oak rails get hand-planed. Better than sanding, but there are 24 of them:
It's a decent workout by the end.
Saturday morning was sunny and hot, and time for the first coat of finish (plain old boiled linseed oil):
Yes, you see it right. I'm putting it on with a roller. It's fast, and the sycamore in particular will soak in a giant amount of oil so it has to go on thick. Over 60 pieces took about an hour all told. In another hour I can back and wiped down the oak pieces (the sycamore legs didn't need it). These sat the rest of the day while I went on to stool parts.
First up was to cut an oak 2x8 into 32" lengths for the leg blanks, then plane those down to a little over 1-1/2" thick. I also jointed a walnut 6x6 section, and resawed that into 2x6 pieces, and planed down to the same thickness. Then I ripped the blanks on the table saw:
After a little more planing to final size, here was the result:
Then on to the rails. Again, both walnut and red oak:
This was a red oak plank running through the thicknesser to get it down to 3/4".
I cut the blanks to length on the RAS. Here's the stack. As you see from the one in front, there were some big splits in some of these:
Half of these will be 3-1/2" wide, the other half 2" wide. The wider ones have a curve cut in the top edge:
Each top rail also had the edges rounded on the shaper, and a groove cut through on the little overarm router to accommodate the cloth seat. Better pictures on these next time.
I also spent two hours on the chair parts hand-wiping on oil varnish. Too thick to spray or roll, and hard to get into the decorative grooves. Glad I did that first, because it was another hot day (95 F/35 C).
On Monday morning I got back to the chairs and did the tenoning and mortising. Here we go:
Now, for those of you who haven't fallen over with heart attacks from seeing an unguarded flat belt and barely guarded tenon heads, here's what's going on:
Each end of each leg needs a 3/4" x 3/4" tenon on it. These tenons need to be perpendicular to the ground--not an easy thing to do consistently on S-shaped legs. I tried a lot of stuff--hand cutting, bandsaw, tenon jig on the table saw, even double heads with a spacer on the shaper. None gave good, consistent results with any kind of speed. So I bought an old tenoner and fixed it up.
But I still need to get consistent results. To manage this I came up with the jig in the second pic. This is an inverted T-shaped contraption that screws to the tenoner table fence. It has a 3/4" dowel mounted perpendicular to the base of the T. This gives a registration point for the leg pivots. The second registration point is the leg outside edge, claimped down to the table. Held in place, I just push it through the tenoner (note the spinning lower cutterhead).
Here they are, after the top tenon is cut:
I have a second similar jig I use with the bottom tenon:
Total time for 52 tenons, including two setups, was about an hour. And the results are great.
Next was mortising. Same problem here--consistency in mortise locations for the rails. Again, a jig to the rescue:
You will again notice a dowel through the leg pivot hole, and the leg clamped to the fence. This again gives consistent results, though 4 setups are required. 52 more holes in about 40 minutes, including 4 setups. Fortunately, the same jig is used for all four setups so after the first one (getting the chisel in place and the depth set right), each other setup takes under a minute.
So here's where I am now on the legs, ready to assemble after drilling the peg holes for the mortises:
I need to get a couple of these assembled in the coming weekend, and also get two folding stools done.
Kirk
I need this much because I have a small side business making furniture for my medieval group, plus any custom work that comes along. So right now I'm starting getting ready for our Christmas event, and first up is a batch of Dantesca chairs and a larger batch of folding stools. I actually started on the chairs a couple of weeks ago, cutting out the leg blanks and the rails. The legs have been shaped, the centers cut to half thickness, the pivot hole bored, and the curve cut to size with a pattern on the shaper. No pictures then. But since last weekend was a 3 day weekend for me, I got out in the shop on Friday and started working:
First off was sanding. A lot of sanding:
When you've got 26 sycamore leg pieces (including two spares) being worked at two grits, it takes a while.
And with the fine grit belt you have to stop and clean it with the rubber block frequently.
The inside curves are done on the spindle sander:
The spindle also needs cleaning frequently.
After sanding it was on to the shaper. The outside curves have two decorative grooves in them, so each leg needs four passes:
After grooving came edge rounding:
Again, four passes per leg.
The red oak rails get hand-planed. Better than sanding, but there are 24 of them:
It's a decent workout by the end.
Saturday morning was sunny and hot, and time for the first coat of finish (plain old boiled linseed oil):
Yes, you see it right. I'm putting it on with a roller. It's fast, and the sycamore in particular will soak in a giant amount of oil so it has to go on thick. Over 60 pieces took about an hour all told. In another hour I can back and wiped down the oak pieces (the sycamore legs didn't need it). These sat the rest of the day while I went on to stool parts.
First up was to cut an oak 2x8 into 32" lengths for the leg blanks, then plane those down to a little over 1-1/2" thick. I also jointed a walnut 6x6 section, and resawed that into 2x6 pieces, and planed down to the same thickness. Then I ripped the blanks on the table saw:
After a little more planing to final size, here was the result:
Then on to the rails. Again, both walnut and red oak:
This was a red oak plank running through the thicknesser to get it down to 3/4".
I cut the blanks to length on the RAS. Here's the stack. As you see from the one in front, there were some big splits in some of these:
Half of these will be 3-1/2" wide, the other half 2" wide. The wider ones have a curve cut in the top edge:
Each top rail also had the edges rounded on the shaper, and a groove cut through on the little overarm router to accommodate the cloth seat. Better pictures on these next time.
I also spent two hours on the chair parts hand-wiping on oil varnish. Too thick to spray or roll, and hard to get into the decorative grooves. Glad I did that first, because it was another hot day (95 F/35 C).
On Monday morning I got back to the chairs and did the tenoning and mortising. Here we go:
Now, for those of you who haven't fallen over with heart attacks from seeing an unguarded flat belt and barely guarded tenon heads, here's what's going on:
Each end of each leg needs a 3/4" x 3/4" tenon on it. These tenons need to be perpendicular to the ground--not an easy thing to do consistently on S-shaped legs. I tried a lot of stuff--hand cutting, bandsaw, tenon jig on the table saw, even double heads with a spacer on the shaper. None gave good, consistent results with any kind of speed. So I bought an old tenoner and fixed it up.
But I still need to get consistent results. To manage this I came up with the jig in the second pic. This is an inverted T-shaped contraption that screws to the tenoner table fence. It has a 3/4" dowel mounted perpendicular to the base of the T. This gives a registration point for the leg pivots. The second registration point is the leg outside edge, claimped down to the table. Held in place, I just push it through the tenoner (note the spinning lower cutterhead).
Here they are, after the top tenon is cut:
I have a second similar jig I use with the bottom tenon:
Total time for 52 tenons, including two setups, was about an hour. And the results are great.
Next was mortising. Same problem here--consistency in mortise locations for the rails. Again, a jig to the rescue:
You will again notice a dowel through the leg pivot hole, and the leg clamped to the fence. This again gives consistent results, though 4 setups are required. 52 more holes in about 40 minutes, including 4 setups. Fortunately, the same jig is used for all four setups so after the first one (getting the chisel in place and the depth set right), each other setup takes under a minute.
So here's where I am now on the legs, ready to assemble after drilling the peg holes for the mortises:
I need to get a couple of these assembled in the coming weekend, and also get two folding stools done.
Kirk
