June/ July Chair Build

Well as Brian has said many a time, "Life happens".  Such is the case with me.  I did manage to get a chance to finish carving the spindles for my chair last Saturday.  Before I did that I took a few minutes to sharpen my drawknives.  While the edges felt sharp and would grab a finger nail, I could tell by the way they were cutting it was time for a quick tune-up.

Bevel down knife and the Drawsharp

Pete Galbert in conjunction with Jameel Abraham of Benchcrafted fame, developed the Drawsharp.  It is a wonderful tool for quickly sharpening/honing the edge of a drawknife.  Check it out here on the Benchcrafted site and on Pete's blog.

I was able to get the spindles roughed out into octagonal shapes and set aside to begin to dry.  I let them sit for a bit before exposing them to the heat in the attic, my present day kiln that only works in the summer months.  This keeps the pieces from warping and splitting.  I was curious so tonight I checked an extra spindles moisture content and was happy to see it had gone form 35% to 15% since Saturday.  Now I cam put them in the attic to begin super drying them.

Spindle at 15% EMC.  Time to put in the attic.

I finished the night off by doing a bit of redesigning of a stool seat.  What I did was increase the size by 10% and changed a few sight line, rake and splay angles.  Nothing drastic from the original design, but it is something that I have been wanting to do and now that I have someone wanting a stool I have the opportunity.

In shop design session.

Next I will be finishing up the arm for the chair and preparing to do the final assembly.  Hopefully the sun will come out and heat up the attic so that I may finish up the June Chair Build by the end of next week.  If not I may just have to finally break down and build a kiln.  Until the next time be well and be safe.

~ Ray Schwanenberger