John Morris

In Part 1 of this topic series I shaped my arms, that was just over two years ago when I started this rocker and then shelved it for reasons out of my control. To see how I shaped the arms you can view here at Shaping Arms. In our current topic here, I sketched out a rough shape where the arm tenon should be. The mortise is 5/8", I used a ruler to establish my tenon lines. Now, since I am heading towards a hand tool experience in my shop, I could have easily made these little cuts with my turning saw, but truth be told, I really like using my Shopsmith, it's that fun for me now. So I converted the SS from a Drill Press to Bandsaw operation. The motor and table is tilted back down to the base. Then the Band Saw is mounted and the motor is slid over to connect with the bandsaw. The tenons are cut and now they need to be shaped round and the arms need to blend into the tenon area. With my Lee Valley shave, I start to make some cuts, and see where it takes me. I have an idea what I want to see the shape look like, but I am kind of winging it here, because I really want to use my RAY ILES tenon cutter, so I need to rough shape the tenons close to round, then the tenon cutter can be used. Just another perspective of the image above. My tenon cutter is working well, it will cut a perfect 5/8" round tenon. So I have a little problem here, I am not too sure I like the tapered portion before the tenon that the cutter produced, I like the more sculpted appearance of a completely hand shaped tenon. You can see the more sculpted beginning of the arm tenon on the arm above the other in the image below, and the boring smooth shape the tenon cutter produced on the arm below the other, I am mulling the use of the cutter in the future. The cutter is made more for Windsors, where the smooth tenon (no shoulder) is tradition. The Shaker chairs traditionally have a shouldered tenon. And that shouldered tenon consequently allows more material for creative shaping. Both arms shaped with the cutter, I also tried to add some interesting sculpted lines that flow into the tenon area the best I could, just to keep it visually interesting. I think I succeeded, not a complete loss in the design department after all. With the arms shaped, we are ready for glue up to the chair. I cut a slot in the front leg top tenon in order to accommodate the wedged tenon that will keep the arm tightly secured to the chair. After a dry run installation, I marked the arms for the holes the top tenons will fit into. I did not get images of this process, I thought I did! It's an interesting way to get the arms perfectly aligned and holes marked for boring, next time I'll have to take images of that operation and walk through it. But for now, the image below shows the arm in place, I tapped the wedged piece of cherry I cut earlier into the slot very firmly with a regular steel hammer, a steel hammer seems to be the only tool to ram these wedges home, I tried a wood mallet on wedges for other projects in the past and it just doesn't feel like it does the job like a heavy steel head hammer does. Almost immediately I cut the wedge flush with my Crown flushing saw. And planed it flush to the arm. Then scraped the surface to bring it completely flush and pretty. it's getting late this day (last Sunday) and I finished my goal just in time for dinner. Time to close up shop. I have a chair frame assembled, the only thing missing is the shawl rail at the top of the chair. I will have to turn the rail and steam bend it, the shawl rail will also be fitted to the top tenons at the rear legs with a wedged tenon just like the arms. To make this chair I studied Kerry Pierce's book "Chairmaking Simplified" and "Pleasant Hill Shaker Furniture" also by Kerry Pierce. I poured over the images, and sketches, and the processes and learned, thanks to Mr. Pierce, how to build these wonderfully fun chairs. Thank you Mr. Pierce! After I finished my celebratory cup of coffee and took the picture above, I swept the floor, cleaned up shop, and rolled my Shopsmith to the side of our garage to make room for mama's car. Lights are turned off, mama's car is pulled in, and it's time to join the family in the home, for dinner and fun. Next post in this topic will show how the rockers are fitted to the chair. Thanks for following!

Thank you Gator! Hey, if you guys want to start minimizing your file size that is great. However, I would not resize your files, we like the big images here, I would compress the file size instead. That we we can cut down the size of the file but maintain the big images we all have become accustom too. I like to use online file compressors, such as this one: Online Image Сompressor IMAGECOMPRESSOR.COM Optimizilla is the ultimate image optimizer to compress your images in JPEG and PNG formats to the minimum possible size. I'll compress my images there, then download them to my pc and upload them here. Look folks, if you have images in the sub megabyte area for file size, you are fine, but if you have imags in the 2 mb on up size, please consider compressing them. Resizing and compressing are not the same thing, we like to see compressed images, not resized.

@kmealy, thank you for that!

I transition slowly Gene.

So now I have all my main chair parts ready for glue up, I need to make some last second decisions, which side of the rungs do I want facing out, I'll go through the rungs and inspect each one for figure, and determine what I want to be viewed from the side. I want the most dramatic figure facing outward, in view. Once I have made that determination, I'll put a little pencil mark on the tenon indicating the side of the rung I want out, so as I am not making that decision during glue-up. Now that my rungs are marked, it's finally ready to make this look like a chair. This glue up went really well, everything fit perfectly, more than I can say for past chair builds, I guess experience is adding up and my OJT is paying off finally. I'll let the chair sit for a couple hours then I'll go to the fitting of the arms. I'll be back later today to submit the rest of the images for this day "last Sunday".

Michael I have fitted ply to solid and solid to ply just as you are suggesting, I actually believe that the tighter the fit the better with dados. The glue can squeeze out all it wants, the real adhesion comes when the wood fibers and glue mix, and are compressed onto each other. Purposefully leaving a gap so the "glue will work" is in error IMHO. That would only weaken a joint, you need the wood to wood compression in order to properly have the "weld" for both pieces of wood to become one. For much of my work I tighten down my clamps well, till they bend nearly, and I look for maximum glue squeeze out, I like to see the glue pour out of my joints. The remaining glue is being forced into the wood, and the fibers are bonding. I would join your ply's and solids with reckless abandon, with dados, you really don't need to be concerned with expansion and contraction as dados are typically cut perpendicular to the grain expanding. Hope I made sense.

I also found a nice article by Paul Sellers on Titebond Hide Glue. Titebond Liquid Hide Glue - Good to Go? - Paul Sellers' Blog PAULSELLERS.COM When I visited Highland Hardware last month I picked up several things I wanted to test out and one of them was a bottle of the...

You are exactly correct Michael! Thus my recent curiosity into the subject. That being said, for traditional chair building I'd say hide would be the glue of choice, the sculpted chairs and rockers, and sculpted furniture however are a different animal, with the incredibly unique joinery and the precise tolerance that is needed for the joinery, Titebond is an accepted choice. I like to use Titebond I for lighter wood as well, and TB III for darker wood such as walnut. Once a sculpted rocker or chair is assembled, there are no repairs, only to cut away and or cut anew. Most definitely my next chair will be hide glue, thanks Michael.

I think that may be a non issue with this glue, since it's in liquid form already, no heating, so no dead animal being cooked smell.

Folks, I was perusing one of my favorite woodworking tools sites, and found a bottle of glue, liquid hide. I have always known about liquid hide, or hide that you would heat up in a glue pot, the one benefit I always knew about was you can repair work that was joined with hide glue, you can heat it up and the joint will release and repairs are possible. One of the benefits I did not know about, is this quote: Doing some more indepth research I found that while it's always a good thing to clean up the glue from the surface of your work, if you miss any with hide glue, it does dry transparent, and as long as you are not using stain, but a clear type finish, it's really no worry as the dried hide glue blends very well with natural wood and natural finishes. It also sounds like there is a much longer open time for assembly, in chair making that is a very desirable benefit, getting all those parts coated and assembled can be stressful. All that being said, does anyone else have any experience with hide glue? Benefits, pitfalls? Here is the glue I was previewing, a bit pricey, but perhaps hide glue just is. Oh ya, one more thing, with this liquid hide glue you don't have to worry about glue pots, since it's already liquifide. Here is the source I am reading about now: https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/MS-OLDBROWN.XX

Thank you Cal, and you can bet on it, actually the weaving is one of my favorite parts of these chairs to do, it's very relaxing actually.

Thanks for the great explanation Artie.

What does that look like Larry? Like a physical bond? A weld or something? Thanks