| These are the plans I'll be using - they are by Charles Brock and are available in the UK from Classic Hand Tools. |
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| The set comes with full size templates for the main components. I glues these to a half sheet of 18mm MDF using white glue. |
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| I mixed a little water with the glue to make it easier to spread and give it a slightly longer open time. Set aside to dry. |
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| Each of the templates is then rough cut out of the sheet on the bandsaw - be careful not to cut through the lines but try and stay as close as you are comfortable. This makes the next step easier! |
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| Each template then gets sanded back to the line using a combination of disc sander, drum sander and hand sanding block. I also used a file to get into tricky corners. |
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| With your templates complete it is time to layout the components on your timber. I'm using American Cherry for this chair. It has a fair amount of sapwood so I'm being careful to avoid as much of it as I can. |
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| Here's another shot of my layout - you only get to cut the boards once so take your time choosing the grain patterns. |
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| I rough out the pieces on the band saw then set them aside while I work on the seat. |
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| The Seat... There are two ways to make the seat - edge joint enough boards to make the width and then shape your seat or the second method (which speeds up the process while giving a deeper and more sculpted look. I went with option two! You need five boards 22 inches long and 4 1/2 wide. I cut these on the table saw and planed the edges up square. I glued up slightly narrower pieces to make up two of the boards as there was so much sap. |
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| Set a bevel gauge to 3 degrees and tilt the fence on the jointer accordingly. |
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| After aligning the five boards for grain appearance number them one through five. Boards two and four get bevelled on their outer edge. The centre board (number three) gets both edges bevelled. |
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| You can see the gaps where I have bevelled the boards. When you clamp them up you get...... |
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| ...a convex seat. This gives you a head start in the shaping process (and is also the method Sam used to make his seats). Next we'll remove the majority of the waste on the bandsaw. |
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