My Windsor chairs attempt

ken is it normal to have the piece to almost size before bending? the are that gave way looks like it was cut down prior.. and if it had been solid then it would have bent together and then cut to shape afterwards,, dont know never done this but the idea sounds logical..
 
I did it the way I was taught. The bend there is pretty big. As I consider why it happened, the best I can come up with is that maybe I didn't have it steaming vigorously enough for long enough.
 
wasnt being critical ken ,,like i said i never done it but form the farm days and fixing stuff the break will occur at a weld or a cut not in the weld but right along it if things arent right..:)
 
I didn't take it as critical Larry. I think where I went wrong was I had it oriented incorrectly on the mold and tried to put one twist too many in. Hard to explain, but I think user error is to blame. Dumb mistake. The thinner portions actually should bend more easily than the thick.
 
progress!

Yesterday I rived another piece from my white oak log. It is the one on the left. By this morning, black stains show where steel wedges were used.



and a closer look at the surface:



get to work with my monster draw knife:



I flatten a face in the ray plane, and then square an edge to it. I can then use a marking gauge to set the thickness of the piece, 13/16".

Once I have two parallel faces, and one square edge, I mark out the shape of the arm, and bandsaw roughly to size. Then clean up with drawknife, spokeshaves and block plane. Elia doesn't use a plane, but I fine it invaluable for getting more consistent lines. Next image is using a smaller drawknife to begin the rounding over of the arm. You can see how subtly it can shape. Then I use spokeshaves, and my beading tool. The arm is ready for steaming, you can see how many shavings are left. These make great kindling, and are saved, dried and used in the woodstove.

It took about 2 hours to go from the rived blank to ready for steaming.

I meant to take a series of photos of the bending, but after getting everything set, I forgot to hit the start button on the camera. Oh well, maybe next arm.



















 

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Woot!

It's great to see some progress in the intended direction, Ken. (Although I'll bet nobody is happier about it than you.)

Nice pile of shavings, too. I'm used to see that kind of collection around a lathe, but I guess there are some Neander tasks that can give turning a run for the money when it comes to curlie generation. ;)
 
Ken thanks for posting. I am very happy for you that this one worked out so well.
Is there anything you did differently or you think its just the way the cookie crumbles.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
 
Rob, I'm embarrassed to admit that it was user error. I had the first arm oriented incorrectly on the jig [it's easy with all the bends] and tried to put a twist in that simply tore it apart. The other thing I did better was to get a full head of steam going before starting the one hour clock. All in all, it went much better. The wood bent quite nicely. It wasn't like spaghetti, but took surprisingly little force.
 
So after a week by the wood stove, here is what the continuous arm looks like. It'll need some refinement, but I'm happy with the result so far.

Continuous arm small.jpg

Time to start another one.
 
Well, I had to wait a while for the gouge to arrive, to cut the gutter, so today I worked on the gutter, and hollowed out some of the seat. It'll take quite a bit more shaping though. Tools used - inshave, travisher and compass plane.

IMG_8537.jpg IMG_8535.jpg
 
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