shop made charirmaking contraptions

[Sean Hughto]

I suppose this is a post mostly to thank J.R. Beall for his threader. I originally bought one to make some quality threads for my Moxon vise. I liked it, so I bought more sizes, with many ideas dancing in my head for uses in projects. I'm in the middle of a chair project and found myself wanting to experiment with details of the bow placement, but being frustrated with various make dos I came up with. The make dos either weren't secure enough, or got in the way of my testing the postion by sitting in the chair. So, Beall to the rescue. I came up with a sort of custom clamp that hosts a sliding pole for playing with the heights. A picture is worth a thousand words here, so see below. I know it probably seems weird, but I thought I'd post it as it might spark some ideas for contraptions of your own. Thanks!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6025/5943450797_e06a34790d_b.jpg

[Kevin Adams]

Sean, very neat, thanks for sharing.

Btw, the chair is looking good, too. Will it be a low or high back style? When we discussed your split seat, I never did ask how you cut your tenons in the first place? Did you use a tenon cutter? Very interesting detail with the large bead on the front and back stretcher!

Would love to see another progress shot if you have time.

Take care,
Kevin

[Jeff Wittrock]

Very cool idea. Chairs are the hardest thing to get right and trial and error can be very time consuming and expensive. I'll bet you get to use those jigs again and again.
I remember how frustrated I was when I built my first rocker and was trying to cobble together something to try out different head rest positions and seat angles. What you are doing is worlds ahead.

-Jeff

[Sean Hughto]

Thank you, Kevin. You're too kind. I feel this is very much a rookie chair, but we all have to start somewhere.

I think this will be a low back - I've heard the style called "library" "smoking and "captain's" chairs. Next one will probably be the more traditional high style.

I mostly make my tenons on my lathe. On the repaired ones to fix the split I did something a bit weird. I used a hole saw to turn the tapered bit with glue, into a slightly smaller clean straight tenon. Since the inner diameter of the hole saw was not a standard drill size, a bit of patient filing guided by a test block was required to get to an nice 1" diameter. Oh, and filled the center hole from the hole saw with a dowel.

I'll be gald to posts some more shots when I make some progress.

Thanks again!

[Sean Hughto]

Cool, Jeff. I figured old hands would come by and tell me that this was completely unnecessary because ....

I know that there is info about angles and lengths out there, but my neander tendencies really push me to want to take measurements direct from the project. Also with a chair, subtle things can really aid or mess up the confort factor, so I like having some feedback from my own body, as opposed to just coming close to angles that worked for others on merely similar chairs. In short, I'm happiest when reinventing wheels. ;-)

[Harlan Barnhart]

Nice work. Your clamping jigs look like finished projects. I can only imagine how nice the chair will look. It seems to be a practical solution to an awkward problem.

[george wilson]

I think any tools that make chair making easier are worthwhile.

[Kevin Adams]

Sean, I've tried everything from turning tenons on the lathe, a block plane/knife, to tenon cutters. If you get to making more of these, the Veritas tenon cutters work very well. They have the expensive ones that fit on your drill or the less expensive ones that you hold in your hand. Both work nicely, but the latter are perhaps easier to sharpen and adjust the cutter. If you need the link, let me know. I use them for smaller tenons, too. They sell a matching reamer for the larger seat tenons, too.

Take care,
Kevin

[David Keller NC]

Sean - That's very inventive. I've seen multiple "chair mockup" devices that were intended to measure the sitter for a custom chair, but they were actually a considerably more complex, expensive, and heavy contraption than the actual chair being built. Your solution is practical & simple.

Interestingly, I think both of us may have taken up the quest to make a chair at almost the same time. Yet, I've been spending my time cutting up tornado-downed trees with a chainsaw, riving out post and rung blanks, and building a shaving horse. You've actually got some tangible output. I think that says something negative about my practicality. ;-)

[Sean Hughto]

As for more complex alternatives, I actually had thoughts of making an elbow and a clamp for the bow itself, but decided that was overkill and would try "simple" first. It would be easy to switch out the sliding post for a more complicated arm, but so far it doesn't seem necessary.

I've been gearing up for chairmaking for a very long time. For me there was lots to master before getting down to it, most notably the lathe, which I got nearly 2 years ago. I recently made a Bogg's shave horse too. I have begun to gather the parts for a steam chamber so that I can teach myself bending. I also built a Dunbar stool and a bench of my own design to practice leg and stretcher skills. But anyway, I am pleased to have finally broken the ice on an actual chair - simple as this one is.

[Trevor Walsh]

Is this the same chair that had the split off the rear legs?

[Sean Hughto]

yep. Fixed that:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6128/5923708809_250ecc1090_z.jpg

[Russell Sansom]

Good idea! I've gone through a couple chair-prototyping phases in my years. I made a bi-stable recliner prototyper ( the "rockers" are two flats with a rounded transition...you throw your weight fore or aft to rock the chair into one of the two positions ) that looked like a torture chair from a comic book. A nice application for slabs of MDF. I wish I could post a photo, but it's enshrined on kodachrome and I haven't digitized that collection of pictures yet. I made every aspect of the chair variable--- armrest height, angles, back to bottom angles, etc.
In any case, I found the prototyper very useful. It was more elaborate than the final chair, but I would have had to build a couple chairs to figure how to fit myself. The proto-chair got me in the ball park but I still had to live with the first chair for a while before I could create a second completely comfortable recliner.

Good luck in your chair quest.