Contoured seat on a chair - tips, tricks, etc.

[Brandon Shew]

I have decided to branch beyond the tables & cabinets that I have been building and attempt to build a chair. I've nailed nail down the basic joinery required as well as dimensions & proportions, but my "design" calls for a sculpted seat. My question is this:

What is the best way to remove the material? I don't want to carve for weeks if there is a faster way.

I was looking through a Thos. Moser catalog and one picture was of their windsor chair in progress. Most of the seat material was removed for the contour, but it was still rough with some fine tuning to do. I saw what appeared to be burn marks in the rough spots indicating use of a power tool. Is this something that could be done using a router w/ some type of cove bit or something or is it best done by hand? Any specific hand tools required? (spokeshave, planes, gouges???)

[tod evans]

brandon, try a 24 grit flap disc in your angle grinder..02 tod

[Don Baer]

What Todd said will work. Another way is like Sam Maloof does. He cuts the contours in on his band saw before glueing up the panels.

[Steve Clardy]

I did some bar stools a few years ago. I fashioned a template on top of material, routed out most of it with bowl bit w/bearing. Then finished off with a ros sander.

[Jim Becker]

What I've done for my chair project...which has been on the shelf for a long time for some reason...is to use a couple of templates that allow me to use a router to hog out some portion of the material and then work with abrasives and a grinder to remove more stock followed by some of the traditional chair making tools, such as a scorp, draw-knives, etc. In other words, I use the router in place of the adz which is a scary tool, IMHO! There is value in combining tailed and un-tailed tools for chair contours, especially in insuring that each seat doesn't look "molded" in a factory.

[tod evans]

brandon, one more "trick" using a template and either a drill press or stop on a bit, drill a series of holes at key depths in the sculpted area to give you a stopping point for power shaping...02 tod

[Andy Hoyt]

Get a scorp. You'd be surprised how quick and easy it is. And it's cordless too!

[Richard Wolf]

Start with a gutter adaze, next a scorp, followed by a travisher and maybe a compass plane. See if you can find Mike Dunbar's book, "Building a Windsor Chair". The book is the bible of windsor chair building and explains seat shaping very well.

Richard

[Doug Shepard]

Get your nastiest old pair of jeans and spray glue some 60G sandpaper on the seat of your pants. Then sit on your blank and start sanding. It's gauranteed to be a perfect contour for you and you alone.

[Brandon Shew]

Get your nastiest old pair of jeans and spray glue some 60G sandpaper on the seat of your pants. Then sit on your blank and start sanding. It's gauranteed to be a perfect contour for you and you alone.

I like it - a truely tailored chair.

Looks like I need to design a few templates for the router.

Any ideas as to what the minimum thickness should be and should I align my glue joint front to back or side to side in relation to the chair?

[Jim Becker]

Any ideas as to what the minimum thickness should be and should I align my glue joint front to back or side to side in relation to the chair?

First question...don't know if there is any guideline as this is dependent on the chair design. Mine don't get less than 3/4". (Starting with 8/4 material)

Glue joint...front to back, IMHO. I have a single glue joint on my seats that is right on the centerline which is also a contour line. I was also very careful to grain match the joint and it's virtually invisible. Given the choice, I'd do the whole seat with a single board, but 18" wide mahogany is a bit, umm....pricey.

And yes, Doug's suggestion sure sounds like fun...or at least a way to keep your butt warm on a cold winter's day in the shop!

[Howard Rosenberg]

Looks like it'd be fast work if you followed holes drilled to specific depths and JUUUUUUST cleared them.

The rest could be done with hand tools.

HTH
Howard

BTW - After using angle grinders off-and-on, I'd sure be careful using one. They rotate PRETTY FAST. Kicking back while holding it at waist height could be something you don't want to imagine.

[Scott Vigder]

Doug, just how far north is waterford?