Design: Like many of us, I am influenced by George Nakashima.  In this case, I wanted to use his chair seat design in a standard four leg configuration with horizontal slats.   

Construction: There is nothing remarkable about the construction.  The backs are steam bent laminations.   The one challenge with the backs was getting the laminated pieces square so that the tenons could be cut square.  Several of the backs came off the form with a slight helix shape likely due to the laminations shifting while being glued/clamped. 

The second challenge was maintaining the routed line in the seat.  The seat contour is cut free hand using King Arthur’s Tools on a hand grinder.  Blending the seat contour to the routed line was difficult even when I left the MDF template in place.  I’m still thinking of a way to do this quicker and easier.

Mike Witkowski
Banks, OR

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