Replies

1. 
   Sgian_Dubh | Dec 18, 2000 10:27pm | #1

   *
   I'm not sure from your description in which order you are working, but I normally approach these problems by marking and/or making the joints prior to shaping the parts. In other words you are working with square timber (or timber with known profiles, angles and/or datum points) whilst marking out and cutting the joints. Once these are cut you can then do the shaping, piercing etc.. For example, your rear leg originally comes out of a square piece, so mark the shoulder lines on the sides prior to cutting out the shape on the bandsaw and final trimming with your router and pattern cutting bit, or spindle moulder (shaper), then join these marked lines and cut the joint. This methodology requires a rod (story stick) or templates, perhaps of plywood, with all the essential dimensions, profiles, joinery, etc., marked on it/them that you offer up to each part to mark the shape, and you also use these rods for the final trimming with the pattern cutting bit I mentioned earlier. Chair work generally involves making quite a few patterns, but there is usually a lot of handwork in traditional types of chair too; carving, final shaping, etc., etc..

   If you think about it, it's often plenty good enough to make the tenons at the top of the splat double bare faced, i.e., no shoulders at all. To see it you have to bend down and look up. This is not always true, but oftentimes the double barefaced tenon is more than good enough. The shoe at the bottom can often be done in the same way, and you are correct, this can often be glued in place after assembly of other parts. In other words, the splat is slipped up into the crown rail mortise, with the bottom end with its shoe slid horizontally in place. It's a bit hard to describe, but I hope you follow my drift.

   As to where the splat should sit in relationship to the side profile of the legs, this is down to so many variables that to give you a definitive rule would be inaccurate for each chair must be looked at on its own merits and design rationale, and so on.

   Not a full and totally comprehensive answer, but a start, and I'm trying to avoid getting too windy. Sliante

1. 
   CStanford_ | Dec 18, 2000 11:53pm | #2

   *Get the book Making Classic Chairs by Ron Clarkson and follow his methodology exactly. Sgian has essentially reproduced Clarkson's advice, but the pictures might help you.

1. 
   Sgian_Dubh | Dec 19, 2000 12:55am | #3

   *Hey Charles, I've never heard of this author. You mean to say he's been plagiarising my words all this time. What I said only came from having made a few chairs in my time. Time to contact Messrs. Soo, Grabbit, & Runne, methinks. (Er,....in jesting mode, in case it wasn't obvious.) Sliante.

1. 
   CStanford_ | Dec 19, 2000 04:32pm | #4

   *Sgian, he's a hell of a woodworker apparently. He was commissioned to build a reproduction for the sellers of a piece (Goddard Townsend desk, I believe) that went for 3.6 million at a Sotheby's auction. Anybody selling a piece worth that much could have hired anybody they wanted to build the repro.For anybody else reading..... when a "big" piece is sold at auction the owners almost always hire a pro to build an exact copy - this is standard operating procedure for the most part. The woodworkers who get these commissions are the creme de la creme of the trade. The copies are usually worth well into the five figures if not six figures.The book I mentioned has hundreds of photographs and shows EXACTLY how to build AND CARVE a Chippendale chair. It has a nice style guide to Chippendale chairs in the front of the book - actual illustrations from Chippendale's books I believe.Very useful book for the chairmaker looking to take it to the next level.

1. 
   Jay_Stallman | Dec 28, 2000 04:40pm | #5

   *Thanks a lot. Your comments were helpful. The problem is that the splatt is carved in sucha way as to make its front surface appear continuous with the surface of the crest rail. If there were no shoulder, then the mortise would become exposed on the front of the rail (ie, I would carve into it.) In fact, an old FWW article on Chippendale Chairs by Eugene E. Landon Oct 1986, says to make a one-shouldered tenon, with the shoulder at the front on top of the splatt and at the rear on the bottom of the splatt.) This would give maximum carvable thickness on the front. Also, when I cut out the legs, to make maximum use of stock, I nested 4 legs inside each other's curvature, so I could bandsaw 4 legs out of one 8/4 board, about 10 inches wide. I never had the reference surfaces to use. Even if I did, the curvature of the leg makes it so the tenons at the top would not be perpendicular to any face of the board. I did make templates out of 1/8 ply for both side and front views, but again couldn't use a router and paatern bit because of the compound curves and lack of a surface for the router to ride on. I just used the bandsaw, spokeshave, rasp and scraper to do the shaping. Further advice is welcome. Thanks a lot. Jay