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Thread: Work in progress - Entrance Bench # 3

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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    Work in progress - Entrance Bench # 3

    I've been wanting to do a limited production run of entrance benches on spec and decided to come up with a new design !

    For a change I'm going with turned legs, basically two inches on the bottom tapering to one inch on the top.

    My previous benches had a leather seat sitting in a frame, the fabric was simply wrapped around the foam/plywood. This will have a seat "floating" one inch above the frame and its shape will be more like a "cushion".

    For the arms I'm considering leaving hand plane marks as a texture. Bottom smooth, top textured.

    There will be no leg to leg side rail, instead the rails will be moved to the inside.

    I spent A LOT of time considering using through/wedged tenons and decided as much as I would like to show off that element would be distracting.

    Concept drawing...

    1 -The concept.jpg

    Material to be used. BC maple @ 2 1/4" thick and the second bench with the most figured walnut board I have have the pleasure to come across @ 1 15/16" thick.

    This will give me a chance to evaluate whether or not standard 8/4 material is thick enough for the legs.

    If not, I will just have to keep the curly walnut bench for myself

    2 - Maple board.jpg

    Up for consideration was a very nice rift sawn cherry board, I decided to save it for the next run of benches as it is 1 15/16" thick...

    The board on the right is a possible choice if the curly walnut plank does not yield all the parts, the bottom two pieces are the rails resawed from the curly walnut plank.

    3 - Cherry and alt walnut plank.jpg

    First consideration is the leg to rail joint. I turned two test legs to visualize the connection...

    5 - Leg mock ups.jpg

    If I go with a simple tapered leg, the rails will have to be shaped. Basically a tapered cove cut and after some thought decided it was simply too plain.

    Instead I decided to leave a square section when turning the taper. This will give me a square to the world leg to rail joint.

    The unturned section would be carved to fit.

    Full size drawing.

    4 - Full size drawing.jpg

    Dry fit..

    7- Dry assemble.jpg

    Pretty basic turning using a 1" roughing gouge and a simple jig. I knocked off the corners of the legs on the bandsaw before turning...

    6 - Turning template.jpg

    To speed up shaping the unturned section, I made a simple jig for the bandsaw. Cut, rotate, repeat.. The cut is about 1/16" proud of the taper.

    8 - Bandsaw leg.jpg

    Continued...
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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    Walnut legs square to rough band sawed..

    9 - Legs bandsawed.jpg

    Maple legs square to rough band sawed...

    10 - Maple legs roughed out.jpg

    Shaping was fairly straight forward, die grinder with a saburr bit, a sleeveless sanding drum and spokeshave for the flat surfaces.

    11 - Weapons of choice.jpg

    Legs from rough band sawed to final sand..

    13 - Rough to finished.jpg

    At this point I have two more legs to shape and then I will go back and fine tune all of the top/bottom sections of the rail mating surfaces to square and all of the curves to fair and as similar as possible...

    Cheers, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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    All legs shaped and sanded.

    Cutting the mortises in the rails, I made a jig for this a while ago. Mark, clamp and cut.

    15 - Mortice jig.jpg

    Some times I chisel/file the tenons round, some times I use a mortising machine chisel to square the corners

    16 - chop corners.jpg

    And finally, a glue up !

    Couple of things to note. The cauls on the bench keep the finished sanded legs off the clamps.

    The angled cauls on the clamps keep the glue up square to the world. If you look closely you will see I've temporarily installed brads on the ends of the legs. This gives me a simple reference point to measure if the clamping pressure is correct and the assembly again is square to the world.

    I did take the time to do a dry assembly to make sure everything was ready !

    17 - Glue up front.jpg

    A bit more work on the front to back rails and when that glue up is done I can measure to drill the holes in the arm rests and shape them.

    Cheers, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    SoCal
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    I enjoy ride along’s. Great work so far, looking forward to more.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
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    NE Florida
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    "Some times I chisel/file the tenons round, some times I use a mortising machine chisel to square the corners "

    Thanks for the tip.....I feel foolish that I never thought to do this myself!! I am enjoying the build as well.....
    Chris

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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    Quote Originally Posted by glenn bradley View Post
    I enjoy ride along’s. Great work so far, looking forward to more.
    Thanks Glenn...

    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Hawkshaw View Post
    "Some times I chisel/file the tenons round, some times I use a mortising machine chisel to square the corners "

    Thanks for the tip.....I feel foolish that I never thought to do this myself!! I am enjoying the build as well.....
    Thanks Christian !

    Here's another tip, don't use a metal hammer and expect to use the chisel in the mortising machine again

    Cheers, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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    Getting close to the end

    Two more arm rests to shape and it's on to oil/spray finish, mock up the seat to confirm final dimensions and get the leather off to the upholsterer !

    The rails are pretty straight forward but I thought I would go through my process.

    I cut the tenons on the table saw with a dado blade, always with the face down on the table. Miter gauge with a sacrificial fence to prevent tear out.

    On to the bandsaw to cut the tenons final sizes. I use the fence for both cuts, first cut the shoulders for the tenons width against the fence stopping shy of the face of the rail.

    Then I set the fence just shy of the rails face and remove the waste on both sides, then a sharp chisel to remove the waste left.

    19 - Tenon.jpg

    For the curve, I make a mark 1 1/8" down and 1/2" in. and use the top of a large pill bottle to mark the curve. Rough out on band saw and in the drill press I use a 1 1/4" sanding drum first and then a 6' V drum with 320. Slow speed and no burning or hand sanding, the V drum just happens to be the right diameter

    22 - V drum.jpg

    To mount the seat, I drill a 3/8" hole from the bottom ( 2" in from each end) and a 3/16" hole (?) from the top so a 3" screw when installed will be proud 5/8" to attach to the 3/4" top.

    One of the elements I wanted to use was a sharp edge on the side of the arm rests. I decided to also use a sharp edge on the top of arm. To lessen the amount of hand plane work I sawed off the corners first.

    20 - Mark arm rests.jpg

    Gluing on the shaped arm rest !

    21 - Arm rest glue up.jpg

    A real quick and dirty video of the work/process to fair the curves....



    Cheers for now, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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    The benches are now oiled and I can focus on the size/thickness and overhangs of the seat.

    Originally I planned on the seat being four inches thick, I now feel that may be a bit over powering in a negative/positive space sense. Thinner may appear a bit more elegant/feminine/balanced/etc. ?

    I also planned on a 1" overhang on the front, this will be moved back to a 1/2" to allow a better feel for the floating element of the seat.

    The set back from the leg to seat viewed from the front was to be 2" measured at the end of the rail. This seems to work, a wider seat isn't actually needed for function and the set back allows a better visual view of the side rails and front rail to leg joint, a good balance of negative and positive space.

    24 - Walnut seat mock up.jpg

    23 - Maple seat mock up.jpg

    Cheers, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  9. #9
    Don,

    Nice work!

    Your living my dream up and over there in Saskatchewan.

    I’ve only been to the west coat of Canada once. And I have only layer my eyes on sasakatchewan once. I can remember being atop a rather large ice climb as everything in the Canadian Rockies is large. Anyway I can remember it was a perfect bluebird day and looking out to what I think was my north and seeing what by comparison to the where I had just come “the ice fields parkway” everything being near perfectly flat and going on and on for what seemed forever without a single building, power line and only the one road I had come in on in sight.

    It made me think of Neil young being from Canada and the song

    https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/neil...inesofage.html

    And my dream to live in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors just me my mother my dogs and nature. I’m sure at this point Canada is not going to welcome us Americans with open arms and rightfully so imop..

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
    Posts
    391
    Thanks Patrick !

    I've met literally hundreds of Americans over the years through my involvement with woodworking conferences here in Saskatoon and later at Emma Lake and I can tell you the woodies at least are always welcome here

    Cheers, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  11. #11
    Nice joinery!

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rhys Hurcombe View Post
    Nice joinery!
    Thank you Rhys !

    Cheers, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
    Posts
    391
    Benches are completed, pictures here

    Cheers, Don
    Don Kondra – Furniture Designer/Maker
    Product Photographer

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