I started work on the Bent Laminations for the back slats. I still haven’t completely solved all my bandsaw issues, but I did improve my cuts somewhat, with a new blade. I picked up at ¾” Wood Slicer form Highland Woodworking. When I went to order the new blade, I noticed they now offer ¾” Wood Slicer blades. In the past I think they only went up to ½”, so I think this is a new addition for them. For resawing, I like to use as wide a blade as I can, and ¾” is the max for by bandsaw.

My process for resawing, is pretty standard. I mill the lumber, so it’s flat a square. I then slice off the thickness of lamination I want. In this case, I want an ⅛” finished lamination. I had to add about a 1/32” to my laminations, to give me enough leeway to clean up the saw marks. Then I take the reaming stock, and run it over the Jointer to clean up the cut face. Then I repeat until I run out of wood.

Now the laminations have one smooth face (from the Jointer), and one rough face (from the Bandsaw). I don’t have a drum sander, so it’s hand tools for me to clean up the rough face. It actually went pretty fast with a hand plane. Even with ⅛” laminations, I was able to plane up against a stop, without the lamination buckling. I used my #7 plane. The #7 allows you to have fair mount of the plane on the lamination, before the blade started cutting. This really helped to keep the lamination from buckling. I was also able to fine-tune the laminations. If one side or end was ticker then the rest, I could to a few extra passes with plane in those areas. A pair digital calipers really came in handing for this process.

After all of the liminations were cleaned up, it was time to glue it up. For this project I’ve been using Titebond III glue, because it has a darker tint to it. Titebond III also has a longer open time, which is helpful for this lamination glue up.

I let the laminations sit overnight, in the clamps. I then scraped off the excess glue, and run one edge over the Jointer. I then cut the slats to width on the bandsaw, then clean up that cut edge back on the Jointer.

I had very little spring-back, when I unclampled the slats. Also, the glue lines are almost invisible. You really need to know where to look to find the glue lines.

I haven’t started to cut the tenons on the back slats yet, but this how I’m going to mark the joints. Recently Bob Lang, at Popular Woodworking Magazine, built a traditional Morris Chair. He created a template stick, that represented the width of the slats with the Tenons cut into it. You then lay the template across the back slat, and mark the location of the tenons.

It seemed like a simple and accurate way to layout the tenons.

I’ll be posting how it worked out, later.

This weekend I was able to get a little shop-time.  The time was spent making the brackets that will go under the armrests.

Making the bracket is pretty straightforward.  I used the approach I learned from Darrell Peart, in one of his G&G Details classes.  You can also see his approach in his book “Greene & Greene Design Elements for the Workshop”.

I created templates for the two shapes, and used them to transfer patterns on the blocks I milled up.

I used my bandsaw to rough out the shape.  I then used my oscillating belt and spindle sander to refine the shape.  The edges were rounded over, using an 1/8″ round-over bit and a router.  Then there was a lot of hand sanding, finishing the shaping and to cleaning up the router marks.

I finally was able to get back to the Greene & Greene Chair project I started last year. I’m at the point where I’m working on the armrests. My initial plan was to do a bent lamination, to get the angle I needed on the arms. I decided to go a different route, and just cut the arms at the angle I needed. One of the reasons I went this route, is that my bandsaw has been giving me issues lately. The quality of cut, when resawing, hasn’t been the best.

To help strengthen this joint, I used a spline. Overall I feel the joint came out pretty well. The glue line blends in pretty well, and I don’t mind seeing the spline on the edges.

Once I had all of the arms cut and glued up, I started marking out the location for the mortises. I started by laying the armrest across the side, so I could mark the exact location off of the tenons.

Traditionally you would do a through-tenon on these chairs, but I wimped out. Also, I had some issues cutting the back tenons on the legs, and those came out a little smaller than the front ones. So I chose not to do through-tenons. I will add a “false tenon” on the top of the arms, to simulate a through tenon.  Don’t judge me, you do what you have to do .  I’m thinking about using Ebony for the false tenons. I’ll do some tests and see how that looks.

Chopping the mortises I used a more “traditional” approach, and hogged out most of waste at the drill press. Then cleaned up the sides and corners with a chisel.

Some fine tuning was done on the tenons, using a Shoulder Plane, to get a really nice fit.

The last step was to finish shaping the arms. All of the corners were rounded, using my oscillating belt sander. I have to say, I’m really liking this Ridgid sander. It is proving to be a really nice purchase.

Also, all of the edges were rounded over, with an ⅛” round-over bit and a router.

The next step is to work on the backs. To get the exact width of the back, I did a dry assembly of the base. You can really start to see what the chairs will look like. I’m very pleased with how things are coming together!

Also, for those who missed it, I started blogging about this project over on WoodTalkOnline. You can find 3 other posts over there, on how I got this far. I’ll be finishing up this project here on my site.