I've made two sets of chairs and both had upholstered seats, now LOML wants chairs with solid wood seats. I've been looking in the Highland Hardware catalog (I would love to set foot in that store )and there are lots of tools for shaping seats. The verbage for the travisher says its for smoothing the shape "after the adz, scorp and compass plane have done their job". Does it really take 4 or 5 tools (and $500) to shape the seats? Never having done it before I want to make it as easy as possible, but what is the really the minimum number of tools required?

I could really use a tutorial on this process.

Thanks.