These chairs were started in mid October 2014 for my wife's BD in late November. Needless to say, the deadline was not met. I used native cedar cut by a local sawmill and milled the parts using both machines and hand tools. The boards for the back slats are bookmatched pieces which looked like animal faces.
A construction plan was downloaded from the internet, but it was lacking in some measurements, plus I altered the design to my liking. They ended up with a very comfortable curve to the seat and back and a nice drop to the arms.
The arm rests were cut to form a 10 degree drop and splined back together.
A lot of the time was spent figuring out curves and the best way to cut them, spacing of slats to show off the patterns best, and altering the revised plan to make things work.
This cedar is hard to handplane due to numerous knots and changing grain around them.
The dog really liked the shavings on that cold floor.
The cedar also wanted to split chunks off at vital places requiring a flexible epoxy glue to fill splits as much as was possible.
An example where a whole side of an arm split off.
A plywood mock-up was made to get the shape for the footstools. That construction was simple compared to the chairs. A small table was last.
Finish started with a blo & turpentine mixture, followed by the same with the addition of beeswax. One thing I learned about the final mixture is it doesn't like to be applied under cold conditions. Even when heated in a water bath, the wax just smeared around and left brush marks when it hit the cold wood. The use of a heat gun helped to some degree, but was time consuming. What worked best was waiting (and waiting, and…) for a sunny day, putting the chairs out and letting the wood warm.
Thanks for viewing Mike
"Duck and Bob would be out doin some farming with funny hats on." chrisstef
