Low back welsh chair build

[ro]

In terms of this job though, shouldn't hand and eye skills be sufficient

Well, yes, but apparently my hand skills aren't good enough. I did the first couple of chairs just sighting by eye. I actually find the laser method quicker to set up and more accurate (than my eyes anyway)

Also, lasers are cool :twisted:

 

[Jacob]

In terms of this job though, shouldn't hand and eye skills be sufficient

Well, yes, but apparently my hand skills aren't good enough. I did the first couple of chairs just sighting by eye.

Practice practice!

I actually find the laser method quicker to set up and more accurate (than my eyes anyway)

I'm sure it is - but eyeballing does get better with practice

Also, lasers are cool :twisted:

Yebbut not as cool as being able to do it just by squinting and rolling your eyeballs!

 

[AndyT]

While I agree with Jacob's view that the most useful thing for a woodworker is more practice, there's a problem for the hobby woodworker. How many wonky chairs can you fit in an ordinary house?
Often, we need to use clever tricks to avoid wasting effort and materials making substandard pieces, unlike the 19th century workers making thousands of items, day after day, whose first efforts would have been burnt, or corrected by a more experienced worker. I think two cheap lasers are a good trick.

The line between getting it right with a trick/beginner's aid is a variable one, set by our own circumstances and inclinations.

 

[ro]

While I agree with Jacob's view that the most useful thing for a woodworker is more practice, there's a problem for the hobby woodworker. How many wonky chairs can you fit in an ordinary house?
Often, we need to use clever tricks to avoid wasting effort and materials making substandard pieces, unlike the 19th century workers making thousands of items, day after day, whose first efforts would have been burnt, or corrected by a more experienced worker. I think two cheap lasers are a good trick.

The line between getting it right with a trick/beginner's aid is a variable one, set by our own circumstances and inclinations.

Absolutely! And each time I use the lasers I'm practicing sighting too. One day I may be able to stop using them.

Next time I want to do this with a steam bent arm which will be much thinner and less able to hide mistakes, so I will use the lasers for that. But it would be nice, one day to be able to do this by eye.

 

[custard]

I too salute the ingenuity that went into the laser device, it's clever, cheap and effective.

=D>

The only comment I'd make is that it implies a very high level of drilling accuracy is necessary for windsor chairs, but in my experience (and I've made scores of them) that's just not the case.

If the spindles are sized properly they have enough flex to accommodate even quite large departures from true, consequently aiming by eye is fully up to the task almost from the first attempt. Maybe it's the familiar story that woodworking newbies often beef up the scantlings to the point where that flex disappears? Or maybe it's the other familiar story, that newbies often don't put the time in at the timber selection stage. But if you select really straight grained stuff for spindles you can shave them down to wand like proportions, they'll be plenty strong enough for the job and they'll bend enough so that a degree or two out is neither here nor there, in fact that small deviation is a large part of what separates the hand crafted chair from the machine made windsors that Ercol churn out by the thousand.

 

[ro]

But if you select really straight grained stuff for spindles you can shave them down to wand like proportions, they'll be plenty strong enough for the job and they'll bend enough so that a degree or two out is neither here nor there, in fact that small deviation is a large part of what separates the hand crafted chair from the machine made windsors that Ercol churn out by the thousand.

Oh, cool. The first ones I did by eye required some bending (and subsequent tw*tting with a lump hummer to seat them) of the spindles, which I took to be a bad thing!
When you say "wand like proportions", what kind of diameter are you talking about? 5/8 straight through? Or even less?

 

[custard]

what kind of diameter are you talking about? 5/8 straight through? Or even less?

Way less.

You might have a thicker section below the arm that could be 5/8", but by the time the spindle passes through the arm bow and the crest bow it's down to 3/8". If you want to turn them it's bloody difficult to control the whipping, I'm a rubbish turner so I generally shaved the spindles. I'd sometimes use cleft stock as well, which might introduce a shallow kink or wave into the spindle but as well as adding buckets of charm makes it phenomenally strong and resilient, use something springy like Ash or Yew and it'll bend an awfully long way before it breaks.

 

[El Barto]

Ro, on the Windsor week I just did we were shown how to sight the drill holes by eye. The method shown is ridiculously simple but also very effective! I was shocked at how simple it was. I was amazed that I nailed what I thought was going to be very difficult in about five minutes. It's outlined in James Murcell's book I think, OR I could come and show you, don't think you're too far from me.

 

[ro]

what kind of diameter are you talking about? 5/8 straight through? Or even less?

Way less.

You might have a thicker section below the arm that could be 5/8", but by the time the spindle passes through the arm bow and the crest bow it's down to 3/8". If you want to turn them it's bloody difficult to control the whipping, I'm a rubbish turner so I generally shaved the spindles. I'd sometimes use cleft stock as well, which might introduce a shallow kink or wave into the spindle but as well as adding buckets of charm makes it phenomenally strong and resilient, use something springy like Ash or Yew and it'll bend an awfully long way before it breaks.

OK, so I don't have a crest box above the arm on this design, do you think I could go down to 1/2 inch spindles on this if I ensured that the grain was straight (or rived it from green stock)?

Thank you very much for all the advice, it's very much appreciated

Ro, on the Windsor week I just did we were shown how to sight the drill holes by eye. The method shown is ridiculously simple but also very effective! I was shocked at how simple it was. I was amazed that I nailed what I thought was going to be very difficult in about five minutes. It's outlined in James Murcell's book I think, OR I could come and show you, don't think you're too far from me.

Wow, that's a very generous offer! Thank you! I'd love to take you up on that when I make the next chair. By the way, how did you get on with the travishers on the course?

 

[ro]

Work has managed to keep me out of the workshop all week, but I managed to grab a bit of time this afternoon to move the chair on a bit.

Hopefully this update is less controversial than the last one. There are no lasers or power tools involved at all :lol:

I refined the inside of the arms with a spokeshave and scraper. Pegs and a wedge were perfect to hold the arm vertical on the low bench, with the cork block stopping it rocking.

Rounded over the top of the arms with spokeshaves. I could have used the pegs and wedge again for this, but I wanted to see what the Veritas Wonder Pup was like for this kind of operation.

It turns out to be amazing (as it is at every other job). Low profile and grips like anything.

Holding the arms to round over the other edges was a bit more taxing. In the end I held it to the bench with the holdfast and put a saw bench under the arm.

With the arms shaped, I cut kerfs in the top of the spindles to take the wedges later and set them into the arm.

I painted the mortices and the tops of the spindles with glue, aligned the kerfs in the spindles to they were perpendicular to the grain in the arm and knocked the spindles home with a lump hammer.

Then, using the arm holders as gauges I knocked the arm down to the right height from the seat.

By now, the glue was starting to go off so I rushed through wedging the spindles with oak wedges (quickly split and pared out with a chisel) and didn't take any photos.

All that's left is to level the spindles to the arm, cut the legs to the right length and oil it up. But that will have to wait for a week as I'm off on holiday tomorrow morning!

 

[El Barto]

Looking really nice. It's come together quickly now!

 

[ro]

Right, almost finished

I put a piece of MDF on the bench and a saw bench to give me a flat surface and used little wedges to level the chair

I adjusted the wedges until the front corners were of an equal height (21.5") and the middle of the back was about an inch lower than the front

I wanted the front to be 20" high so I cut down a piece of scrap so that a pencil was held 1.5" high and made the most ghetto marking gauge ever :lol:

Tracing round the legs with the gauge

I have always struggled to hold the legs to trim the ends, but where the low bench is so narrow I could just use the holdfast to hold each pair of legs in turn and cut them off.

Next, trimming the tops of the spindles and wedges.
I don't have a flush cut saw and I'm scared of cutting into the arms, so I cut a hole in a piece of thin card and pop it over the spindle top

Then I can just lay the saw flat on the card and cut away

A couple of swipes with the block plane levels them off

Now it's going to sit inside for a day and warm up before I give it a final sand and put the finish on it 8)

 

[El Barto]

BEAUTIFUL! Neat trick with the card to avoid cutting in to the arm.

How are you going to finish it?

 

[ro]

BEAUTIFUL! Neat trick with the card to avoid cutting in to the arm.

How are you going to finish it?

Thank you. I was planning on a couple of coats of Danish Oil to bring out the colour of the wood followed by a beeswax and oil mixture.
I've been trying out various oils mixed with beeswax as finishes, next up is either olive oil or hemp oil. I've not decided which one to try...

 

[Sheffield Tony]

They say olive oil can go rancid. I'm not sure it is all that bad, but it might be a bit of a risk to try it first on a chair with quite a lot of work in it.

A very enjoyable thread BTW, both for the chair itself and how you got there !

 

[DTR]

Looks amazing! =D>

 

[ro]

It's finally done!!!!

Following Tony's advice on olive oil going rancid, I chose to try out a hemp oil and beeswax finish on the chair.
I started with a lump of beeswax, some hemp oil and an old jam jar

Chopped up the beeswax and added it to the jar with 3 times the weight of hemp oil then set the jar in some simmering water for 1/4 of an hour

When all the wax has melted it looks like honey and when it cools it looks like rancid honey!

And when rubbed into the chair it gives everything a worrying green tint!

However, when I buffed off the wax it was left with a lovely soft sheen and no green-ness 8)
I ended up giving the spindles, legs and seat a coat of danish oil to bring out the colours and left the arms with just wax to keep them nice and light.

3 coats of wax later:

It's not perfect, but it's definitely good enough to sit on!

All in all, it's been a fun build. Restricting myself to using the low bench rather than a normal bench with a vice added some challenges, but I have learned to love it for some operations:
1) Rough crosscutting operations are so easy on this bench
2) face planing boards and planing the legs to shape seem easier when sitting down
3) Boring holes at this height meant I could get my body over the brace
4) HOLLOWING THE SEAT!!!!
5) Marking out

One thing I really noticed is just how stable this light little bench is for planing. With my considerable mass sitting on it there is no rack or movement like I get in my normal bench. Time to build a new normal hight bench methinks :wink:

However, I'm looking forward to using a vice again, especially for planing the edges of boards and rounding the back of the seat!

Thanks for watching (and all the great advice!)

 

[AndyT]

Thanks for sharing the build with us.
That looks like a family heirloom chair you've made there. Really smart. Well done!

=D> =D>

 

[El Barto]

Man, that is brilliant. The wax concoction turned out great. Did you test it on any offcuts before you applied it or did you just go for it? Pre-application it looks like mushy peas!

Another question: how was it turning the spindles on the lathe? Did you get much vibration or was it ok? You may have mentioned that already when you posted that section...

What an enjoyable build, thanks for sharing.

 

[ro]

Thanks both! I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

The wax concoction turned out great. Did you test it on any offcuts before you applied it or did you just go for it? Pre-application it looks like mushy peas!

Yeah, I tried it out on an offcut of sycamore before I slathered it over the chair as I was slightly worried I'd turn the chair green :mrgreen:

Another question: how was it turning the spindles on the lathe? Did you get much vibration or was it ok? You may have mentioned that already when you posted that section...

The spindles turned really between centers on the lathe, no vibration or chatter at all.
However, they are only about 13 inches long. When I've done longer spindles I have had terrible chatter. On longer spindles I normally rough the whole thing to a cylinder and turn about 8 inches of each end and then finish the rest off on the shaving horse.