So the chair is technically finished, I'm going to wait a few weeks for the tung oil to catalyze then try another coat of oil-urethane, then on the paste wax and 0000 steel wool. till then I'm just waiting on my walnut.
Until the time I can commence with the three-chair production, I still have in my possession these amazing pieces of hard maple.
They make bowling alley lanes out of this stuff.
It's supposed to be hard!
I mean, it is, don't get me wrong, but working it is like carving alabaster, but with a very definite grain, changing directions through the board (if you really want to call a two inch by thirteen inch by eight feet piece of wood a board, I like slab myself) I cut three feet off each and joined them up with a half blind, lipped box joint, which will be through pegged before jointing. sounds like a lot of work but the entire middle piece needs to be sound, then all three will be edge joined and bread boarded. I'm figuring four hours work for each side of the joint and a couple finessing it into place.
However, there is a 5/8 inch cup to each long section and a bit of wind as well, so it's off to the jack, then on to the fore and finally jointer. I never realized how much surface area there was to these guys. I can go about a half an hour then need to rest, take a walk, shake it out. I feel like Arnold in Conan, my pecs are screaming, but I feel pumped!
It'll probably take a few more days of this to even get the pieces close enough to join.
As you can see, I'm still working out the base design , I've modelled the whole thing in SketchUp, including a half-assed rendering of the chairs, and have realized the compromise yet again, design vs. aesthetics vs. functionality.
There is one lesson in both gardening and wood working:
PATIENCE
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