Help with the Ron Clarkson Chippendale..
Hello,
I’ve recently been given the Ron Clarkson book on making the Chippendale style chairs.
Looking through it I feel confident about making them…pretty straight forward.
Sad to say the most difficult part of the process I see for myself is making that chair side rail “angled tenon” jig. For the life of me, I cannot understand the plan that came in the book for that jig.
Just wondering if anyone out there has followed him step by step and has a picture of the jig they could post or send me…or if anyone has any other suggestions. I had seriously considered just figuring out the angles and laying them out, then cutting them by hand…but I would like to make a set of about seven or eight chairs and the jig would no doubt save me a ton of time.
Anyway, if anyone has any info for me it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
E. Anderson
Replies
E,
There are a couple of ways to skin this cat. If you plane the wind into the side rails then you can tilt the tablesaw blade and run the piece with the planed site on the fence to get the tenon to be angled and parallel to the outside face of the post/side rail. Do you follow me?
Secondly would be to make a jig that has a wedge that corresponds to the angle of the back post and use this to hold the side rail at the proper angle and tilt the saw blade as previously mentioned and using the fence as a guide. This technique allows you to cut multiple tenons and fit them before you plane the wind in the rails. This is nice so that if you have some slight differences in the tenon thickness or position you won't have to plane the post.
Lastly you could use the bandsaw and make a ramp as mentioned before that sits on a block which holds the piece at the proper angle formed by the front or back rail and the side rail.
If you make a full scale drawing it may become a little more clear.
I could probably think of a few more ways to do this but I can't type very well, and some of the descriptions are quite lengthy.
J.P.
There's a great article by Will Neptune available to purchase and print online in the FW archives. The article specifically deals with compound angled tenons for chair construction. Buy it and your problem will be solved.
Hint: Draw the chair seat in plan view full size and draw an elevation of the back legs and mortise.
Buy the article for $3.50
Did you find the article in the archives?
E.
I have the book and looked at the diagram.
The jig on page 34 will help you cut the rear tenons of the seat rails (there is a left and right hand version). What you are doing is cutting a SINGLE angled tenon but with a twist between the seat rail and the back leg. This resuts in a compound cut but not a compound angled tenon. Note that when looking from the side (page 32) the angle between the seat rails and back legs is 90 degrees.
The diagram on page 34 shows the a fence screwed to a base. The "ANGLE OF SEAT RAILS" is the angle between the seat rails and the back legs when looking from the top of the chair.
The tilt of the fence or "ANGLE OF REAR LEGS" is the twist I mentioned. You can see this in the diagram on page 33. When looking at the chair from the front you can clearly see that the back legs are splayed out at the top. They are not straight up and down. On the left side (of diagram on page 33) you can see the tilt between the dotted line representing the tenon and the straight up and down line of the seat rail sides.
Hope this helps.
Dean
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