Dining Chair Build

steve morris

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52
we decided it was time for some nice dining chairs to match the other dining room furniture made by my father. the 30 yr old store bought stuff just doesnt go!! besides ive reglued every one of the old chairs several times!

we chose this design from popular woodworking: http://www.popularwoodworking.com/oct15/slat-back-chair

right now im working on a prototype to workout the joinery details and to correct a couple of errors in the plans/templates

so this chair is just made up from 4/4 soft maple

DSC00704.jpg

the legs are glued up from 4/4 material, i'll be using 8/4 for the real thing. some real challenges here, shaping the rear legs, angled mortises in the legs, angled shoulders for the tenons etc etc

the back slats(4 in all) are glued up over a form from 4 layers of 1/8 material, i need a better way to glue them up, ive got 24 to do in all and i clamped this one up for 24 hours!!

i'll post more build pictures of the various steps as i start the actual build of the 6 "real" chairs, lots of machinery and handtool work!
 
Angles and tapers and curves, oh my :eek: :eek:

Looking forward to watching this project. Chairs can be intimidating for most of us. Looks like you have things under control. Also looks like a little Frank Lloyd Wright influence, correct?
 
so the prototype is complete, we're trying to decide on maple or walnut slats, i have 4 of each as a trial

DSC00707.jpg

the left front leg is 3/16 off the table surface, an easy fix

also here is the form for making the slats, they are 4 layers of 1/8 material

DSC00706.jpg
 
So the adventure begins!

picked up a pile of 8/4 and 5/4 hard maple and some 4/4 walnut(for the slats) i believe it was 32 bdft of 8/4 and 20 of 5/4 for the maple plus 6 bdft of the walnut

i rough cut all the backlegs on the big bandsaw in such a way that i could get some front legs in between

front legs and rails are all jointed and planed, still slightly oversized and overlength

i'll stack the pieces in the house for a few days while i machine the back legs and get the mortiser(old beaver) and tenon dimensions sorted out

DSC00725.jpg

i'll dress them to the final dimensions in a few days. thats the template for the back legs on top of the pile

i'll also rip up the walnut into 1/8 strips so that i can start gluing them up, i can only do one per day due to clampup time and space constraints
 
:lurk:

The back slats dropping down to the back rail adds an interesting element to the chair. Should really pop with the contrasting wood.

Are you doing any reinforcement between the rear legs and the seat? That's the area that seems to fail most often especially on chairs without lower stringers.
 
:lurk:

The back slats dropping down to the back rail adds an interesting element to the chair. Should really pop with the contrasting wood.

Are you doing any reinforcement between the rear legs and the seat? That's the area that seems to fail most often especially on chairs without lower stringers.

there is a back seat rail between the side rails shown in the plans, i have it cut but not installed, there are also two front corner braces
 
:lurk:

The back slats dropping down to the back rail adds an interesting element to the chair. Should really pop with the contrasting wood.

Are you doing any reinforcement between the rear legs and the seat? That's the area that seems to fail most often especially on chairs without lower stringers.

there is a back seat rail between the side rails shown in the plans, i have it cut but not installed, there are also two front corner braces
 
today i'll be dressing and shaping the back legs. i rough cut them to shape already and jointed one face, i'll thickness them with the tablesaw and planer

then it'll be the little shaper's turn using a template and a 3 inch diameter template cutter(byrd helix)
 
Nice job. I think chair building is some of the toughest work. It seems that every cut is at an angle and they all have to come together perfectly or one starts over. I will watch and see how it comes out.
 
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