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Showing results for tags 'back slats'.
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From the album: Shaker Furniture
Laying out the mortises for the back slats of our chair. I scribed the layout lines with a razor knife before I started chopping the mortises. By scribing the lines first, I ended up with a nice crisp and clean mortise line. The lower slat had to have 3/4" deep mortises, and the mortises progressed more shallow to the top and 4th slat at 1/2" deep. -
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From the album: Shaker Furniture
I tried this once before with these same slats, using only two clamps, and I failed miserably, so I had to put the slats back in the steamer again, and try to get the slats to cooperate in the form. This time I used many clamps, and I even clamped some supports so the forms wouldn't get wiggly and goosey on me. -
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From the album: Shaker Furniture
As you can see, this is a far cry from my original idea of using two clamps. The author (Kerry Pierce) of the book I am learning to build chairs from, uses a bench vise to close his forms in, that is an excellent idea, there is no wrestling, no fuss, just insert the steamed slats in the form at the bench vise, and close the vise. I will need to purchase a bench vise with the screw longer than 10" as that is the thickness of my form with the slats in them, pre-bend. That'll have to wait though, as funding becomes available for such a tool. Eventually I'll have to have several bench vises to accommodate the construction of various chairs at once. These slats are a quarter inch thick. The formula for steam bending wood is 1 hour per inch, thus 15 minutes should suffice for these slats, but the author steams his slats for a half hour, so I did as well. I am not that good yet that I can start steering away from sage advice from a professional post and rung chair builder like Kerry Pierce. -
From the album: Shaker Furniture
Ok, we are all set, and ready to steam and bend the first parts for this rocking chair. The back slats will be bent pretty sharply to accommodate the back of a person, and the posts will have a gentle bend that will lay back a tad for a person to lay back in as well. -
From the album: Shaker Furniture
Once shaped each back slat separately I then ganged them up and did a few more passes with my shave and block plane, to get them all to even height and shape. -
From the album: Shaker Furniture
I re-sawed some cherry down to 3/8" then I took it to the planer to finish it down to 1/4" thickness. I then band sawed the chair back slats to shape, and I finished up the edges with a spoke shave to smooth out all the bumps and bruises from the band saw. -
Front view, showing the armrests, and the slats for the back. front rung is a store-bought 7/8" dowel.
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