My Dining Room Table and Chairs Project

[Brent Ring]

This is the project that I have been working on - in spotty fashion for the last 9 months. I have gotten more time in the last month or so, and progress has been made.

The chairs in this post will surround a 4' square/round dining room table. There will be 8 chairs total. I will take some photos of the table later, as it needs some work to be ready, and its not in the shop currently, hiding in a empty basement bedroom.:)

These are some photos that my wife shot. I will be taking more pictures of the components once I take them apart for final sanding and finishing. Wood is a mix of black and regular walnut, all 8/4, and 6/4 rough stock, and hollow wrought-iron cut to size from the orange borg. The design is from something we saw at a furniture store. Originally we are just going to build the table and buy chairs, but could not get colors to match. Glad I have gone thru the experience of building chairs now. :eek:

Did fullsize templates for all curved parts, and full size patterns for all other parts. Used Sketchup. I would love to have a large format printer.;)

Mortise and tenon joinery everywhere, angled tenons on the stretchers between the front and the back. Used my mortiser with a sliding cross vise to do all the mortising, including the back side supports.

Will be finishing with a seal/smoothing coat of 1-2 lb garnet shellac, laid on heavy and sanded flat on the table top, smooth everywhere else. Then wiping on Waterlox Original, with probably 3 coats a day for 5 days for the table top, and 3 or 4 days worth for everything else.

I will be posting photos and pictures of my seat routing jig soon. That is interesting to see in action as well.

Lots more photos to add. Comments suggestions and questions are welcome.

[Jim Rimmer]

I think you have built an heirloom dining set. The chairs are beautiful and I'm sure the table will be, too. I don't care for the wrought iron but that's an individual taste thing and you and your wife like them and that's what counts. The quality and craftsmanship is outstanding.

[alex grams]

Very nice looking. Are you going to make pads for the seats? Also, did you make a test chair to see how comfortable they are? Or are you confident the design will work comfort wise?

[Jeff Monson]

Beutiful chairs Brent, really like the iron mixed in with the walnut, they will be stunning once the finish is on.

BTW your post says table and chairs, where's the table pics??? Its not fair to tease us.

[Greg Dekeyser]

looks really nice and solid!

[Brent Ring]

This will be a bit of the process of how my chairs were built.

All of the chair parts were built out of 6/4 or 8/4 wood.

I first made full size templates, and built a prototype out of some glued up beech I have. That helped get the sizing and proportions correct.

The I started cutting the Walnut. Woo Hoo!

I glued up seat blanks.

I made a cool router jig for carving out the seat portion where you sit. The idea came from an FWW article, and I just modified it to where it matched my needs. The area in Chalk on the seats is where I routed or scraped, and then sanded

[Brent Ring]

Once I had the seat blank in the jig, I started routing. Routing roughed it out, and I then used a scraper, chisel, and sanders from 60 grit all the way to 220 to get the seats ready. Once sanded to 120, I took them to the bandsaw to get them to rough shape.

[Brent Ring]

Prior to finishing the seat bottoms, I had cut out and sanded rough parts, making one extra of each. I only had to use one extra back leg. Everything else came out well.

Installing the seat was the last part. I used 4 - 3" long, 1/4 " diameter SPAX screws, 1 thru each support piece to hold them in place. All joinery was mortise and tenon other than shown screws.

[Brent Ring]

Finishing schedule was

1. sanded to 220 grit.
2. Thick coat of clear shellac to fill the grain
3. Sanded back with 220 again.
4. 4-5 wiped on coats of a 50/50 Waterlox original/MS mix
5. Assembled the chairs, except for the seat
6. anothe 6-8 coats of Wipe-on
7. Installed the seats
8. Let finish cure.


I have 3 chairs completed so far, with 2 more in the finishing stages, and 3 left to complete rough assembly and sanding. The wrought iron balusters in the backs are acutally double twist balusters cut into 2 pieces, and then inserted into 1" deep, 1/2" mortises. My XY vice on my Jet mortiser made short work of all the mortises, even the ones on the long back legs. I simply drew straight lines on the back legs where one edge of the mortise should be, and then aligned them with a straight board in the mortiser and it worked great.

Finished pics of a one of the chairs. There will be 8 total.


More to come on the table soon. Wood was a mix of black kiln and air dried walnut in the project.

[Dave MacArthur]

Really like it! Love the walnut/iron combo. Great thread, thanks for taking the time to post, I'm enjoying your progress!

[Brent Ring]

Very nice looking. Are you going to make pads for the seats? Also, did you make a test chair to see how comfortable they are? Or are you confident the design will work comfort wise?

As you can see in the further posts, the seats are out of walnut as well and I did build a prototype to test out the comfort of the chair. I have had probably 10 different people sit on the chair, and they either lied extremely well, otr thought it was very comfortable. I find them comfortable.

[Brent Ring]

Beutiful chairs Brent, really like the iron mixed in with the walnut, they will be stunning once the finish is on.

BTW your post says table and chairs, where's the table pics??? Its not fair to tease us.


Table pics are a week or two out. But coming!

[Hans Braul]

Brent,
Great project. I can appreciate what's involved in a set of dining chairs. I like the set. Looking forward to the table.
Hans

[Van Huskey]

Very nice design and workmanship!

[Brent Ring]

Here is where the table project is completed... http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1467138#poststop