In the last session, I positioned the legs at their respective angles to the seat face. We used angles specified by the Fine Woodworking article and used the sight lines as reference faces for those angles. To complete the undercarriage of the chair, I’ll add the side and medial stretchers in this session.

The key to aligning the side stretcher is to have a line and guideline established at the final orientation, then swinging the stretcher into final position using the rotation tool. The rotation tool is aligned to a rotation plane created by a small trapezoid shape between the guidelines.

As you’ll see in the video, the Side Stretcher is found to be too long to fit in between the front and back legs. Using the Scale Tool, the length is adjusted to proper fit-up. In the shop, I measure the as-built dimension between the legs before turning and cutting the stretchers. I like to have them slightly long (say 1/4-in.) in order to create a slight outward pressure on the legs in the final assembly.

The Medial Stretcher is similarly installed between the mid-joints of the Side Stretchers.

In the next session we’ll start the construction above seeat with the bow back.

Tim

Launch Gallery