wow, your chairs are a lot fancier than the ones I build. Good job.Progress Photos
![Wood Flooring Hardwood Wood stain Table]()
Making one of the back supports. The back gets deeper as it goes up, and I cut dadoes to capture the back slats and help even up the spacing. After the steam-bending, the slats are not entirely straight side-to-side. The flat side of this support gets shaped to a curve after it is dadoed and the peg holes are drilled.
![Table Wood Flooring Wood stain Floor]()
The back slats attached to their supports. The bottom (far) support is heftier; it attaches to the legs with a single peg on each side so that it can pivot. This layout is a bit of a nightmare because the back slats splay out. Rather than try to get it exactly correct, I attached each slat at the bottom rail with a single dowel so that they could pivot. That let me position them into the upper support and use two pegs there. (To match that design detail in the seat.)
![Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Grass Wood stain Hardwood]()
Gluing up the back slats. The bottom support is done first, then the upper support. There's enough space to slide clamps in between the back supports to glue the upper support. Keeping this square was a challenge.
![Packaging and labeling Publication Liquid Carton Electric blue]()
Hey, I used up a can of linseed oil. That only took about ten years.
![Brown Wood Wood stain Floor Flooring]()
Once I got the back glue-up finished, I cut out and shaped the arms. These need to be bent before the compass roses are inlaid.
Adirondack Chair
Mock Up
My father-in-law has been a long-time builder of Adirondack chairs. He's retiring this year, so I decided to build him a custom Adirondack chair for his retirement. I looked around a bit for inspiration, and really liked this chair by Michael Brown:
![]()
The lines are nice, and I like the idea of the bentwood slats for the back and seat, to be more comfortable than the traditional Adirondack design. I posted a question about it on one of the forums, and Andrew Kopac of 24HourDesign.co was kind enough to contact me and offer to put together a design based on the photo:
![Furniture Chair Product Line Art]()
Andrew did a couple of iterations with me to adjust some of the features and did a really great job. I recommend him if you're looking for someone to put together a design!
I had a general notion for the profiles of the chair and back slats, but I was a little concerned about the exact dimensions. I ended up ordering rocking chair plans (and the book) from Hal Taylor's Rocking Chair University. I was able to make a template for the back slates more-or-less directly from Hal's plans. Hal's rocking chairs have carved seats, so there isn't a profile in the plan, but I put one together based upon the general dimensions and it turned out to be very comfortable.
I originally intended to make laminated slats, but since I wasn't too confident in my ability to resaw a bunch of 1/8" plies I decided to try steam-bending the slats. I purchased a steam bending kit from Rockler and put together a steam box. Embedding videos doesn't seem to be working, but if you care to follow the link here it is, quietly percolating away:
Steam Box
As you might be able to tell from that video, I built the steam box out of 1/2" pine, which turned out to be a bad idea. The steam started warping and destroying the box pretty quickly. After a few uses I had to build a new box. This time I used 1/2" plywood and finished the inside with spar varnish. The second box has held up much better, although the plywood has started to delaminate at the door end where it is more exposed to the steam.
I also took a couple of tries to settle on workable bending jigs. I initially tried to create a jig with dowels at the key bending points. This actually worked very well, but the pressure on the dowels ended up denting the wood. So I ended up building more complete forms for the bending jigs. As it happens, they fit nicely on a standard 2×4:
![Wood Table Hardwood Wood stain Lumber]()
As you might guess from that picture, I initially made the forms from 2×4 stock, but they turned out to not quite be tall enough for the slats I was using. (I used 1/2" craft slats I could get pre-cut at a Big Box Lumber Store. They are 2.5" wide. For the final chair, I'll probably do 2" slats.) So I had to add another layer of plywood to each of the bending blocks.
Pine is apparently not the best wood for steam bending, but after 8 seat slats and 8 back slats I got pretty good at bending. So steam bending looks like it will work for the final chair, but it's clear that it will be important to be very consistent, otherwise the slats don't match up well when placed side-by-side.
Based upon Andrew's design, some of the comments on the forums and some of my own ideas I put together a mock-up in pine. I wanted to do a mock up so that I could play around with the seat and backrest angles, the height of the chair, the geometry of the arm-rests and so on. This was a good idea, as my initial seat angle was too steep and the back had to be much more upright than I expected. Here's what the mock up looks like:
![Wood Hardwood Outdoor furniture Armrest Flooring]()
As you can see, the mock-up has adjustable arms. The back pivots on dowels at the bottom, and by changing holes on the front of each arm I can adjust the angle of the back. As you can see from the number of adjustment holes, my initial guess was pretty far off!
I'm pretty happy with the fit of the mock-up. I was a little worried that the back wouldn't be sturdy enough made out of 3/8" thick slats and anchored very low, but it turned out to be quite solid. It flexes enough to be very comfortable. It isn't obvious in the above picture, but both the seat and the back are dished. The seat is dished 1/2" over 22". The back starts the same and ends up dished 1" over 23" at the top. (The back fans out slightly.) For the final chair I may increase the amount of dish.
The next challenge will be to do the arms. They need to be flat at the front (i.e., to hold a drink), slant backwards for comfort, and then slant again to fit to the cross-piece on the back.
My father-in-law has been a long-time builder of Adirondack chairs. He's retiring this year, so I decided to build him a custom Adirondack chair for his retirement. I looked around a bit for inspiration, and really liked this chair by Michael Brown:
The lines are nice, and I like the idea of the bentwood slats for the back and seat, to be more comfortable than the traditional Adirondack design. I posted a question about it on one of the forums, and Andrew Kopac of 24HourDesign.co was kind enough to contact me and offer to put together a design based on the photo:
Andrew did a couple of iterations with me to adjust some of the features and did a really great job. I recommend him if you're looking for someone to put together a design!
I had a general notion for the profiles of the chair and back slats, but I was a little concerned about the exact dimensions. I ended up ordering rocking chair plans (and the book) from Hal Taylor's Rocking Chair University. I was able to make a template for the back slates more-or-less directly from Hal's plans. Hal's rocking chairs have carved seats, so there isn't a profile in the plan, but I put one together based upon the general dimensions and it turned out to be very comfortable.
I originally intended to make laminated slats, but since I wasn't too confident in my ability to resaw a bunch of 1/8" plies I decided to try steam-bending the slats. I purchased a steam bending kit from Rockler and put together a steam box. Embedding videos doesn't seem to be working, but if you care to follow the link here it is, quietly percolating away:
Steam Box
As you might be able to tell from that video, I built the steam box out of 1/2" pine, which turned out to be a bad idea. The steam started warping and destroying the box pretty quickly. After a few uses I had to build a new box. This time I used 1/2" plywood and finished the inside with spar varnish. The second box has held up much better, although the plywood has started to delaminate at the door end where it is more exposed to the steam.
I also took a couple of tries to settle on workable bending jigs. I initially tried to create a jig with dowels at the key bending points. This actually worked very well, but the pressure on the dowels ended up denting the wood. So I ended up building more complete forms for the bending jigs. As it happens, they fit nicely on a standard 2×4:
As you might guess from that picture, I initially made the forms from 2×4 stock, but they turned out to not quite be tall enough for the slats I was using. (I used 1/2" craft slats I could get pre-cut at a Big Box Lumber Store. They are 2.5" wide. For the final chair, I'll probably do 2" slats.) So I had to add another layer of plywood to each of the bending blocks.
Pine is apparently not the best wood for steam bending, but after 8 seat slats and 8 back slats I got pretty good at bending. So steam bending looks like it will work for the final chair, but it's clear that it will be important to be very consistent, otherwise the slats don't match up well when placed side-by-side.
Based upon Andrew's design, some of the comments on the forums and some of my own ideas I put together a mock-up in pine. I wanted to do a mock up so that I could play around with the seat and backrest angles, the height of the chair, the geometry of the arm-rests and so on. This was a good idea, as my initial seat angle was too steep and the back had to be much more upright than I expected. Here's what the mock up looks like:
As you can see, the mock-up has adjustable arms. The back pivots on dowels at the bottom, and by changing holes on the front of each arm I can adjust the angle of the back. As you can see from the number of adjustment holes, my initial guess was pretty far off!
I'm pretty happy with the fit of the mock-up. I was a little worried that the back wouldn't be sturdy enough made out of 3/8" thick slats and anchored very low, but it turned out to be quite solid. It flexes enough to be very comfortable. It isn't obvious in the above picture, but both the seat and the back are dished. The seat is dished 1/2" over 22". The back starts the same and ends up dished 1" over 23" at the top. (The back fans out slightly.) For the final chair I may increase the amount of dish.
The next challenge will be to do the arms. They need to be flat at the front (i.e., to hold a drink), slant backwards for comfort, and then slant again to fit to the cross-piece on the back.
Attachments
21 - 32 of 32 Posts
Looking forward to seeing this masterpiece finished.Progress Photos
![Wood Flooring Hardwood Wood stain Table]()
Making one of the back supports. The back gets deeper as it goes up, and I cut dadoes to capture the back slats and help even up the spacing. After the steam-bending, the slats are not entirely straight side-to-side. The flat side of this support gets shaped to a curve after it is dadoed and the peg holes are drilled.
![Table Wood Flooring Wood stain Floor]()
The back slats attached to their supports. The bottom (far) support is heftier; it attaches to the legs with a single peg on each side so that it can pivot. This layout is a bit of a nightmare because the back slats splay out. Rather than try to get it exactly correct, I attached each slat at the bottom rail with a single dowel so that they could pivot. That let me position them into the upper support and use two pegs there. (To match that design detail in the seat.)
![Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Grass Wood stain Hardwood]()
Gluing up the back slats. The bottom support is done first, then the upper support. There's enough space to slide clamps in between the back supports to glue the upper support. Keeping this square was a challenge.
![Packaging and labeling Publication Liquid Carton Electric blue]()
Hey, I used up a can of linseed oil. That only took about ten years.
![Brown Wood Wood stain Floor Flooring]()
Once I got the back glue-up finished, I cut out and shaped the arms. These need to be bent before the compass roses are inlaid.
Wished you had showed the steam bending process.
I favorited that Dremel tool attachment for routing. Looks like it could have many applications…...................
Attachments
I'm going to bend the arms today, so I can take some photos. Though there's not a terrible lot to see.Progress Photos
![Wood Flooring Hardwood Wood stain Table]()
Making one of the back supports. The back gets deeper as it goes up, and I cut dadoes to capture the back slats and help even up the spacing. After the steam-bending, the slats are not entirely straight side-to-side. The flat side of this support gets shaped to a curve after it is dadoed and the peg holes are drilled.
![Table Wood Flooring Wood stain Floor]()
The back slats attached to their supports. The bottom (far) support is heftier; it attaches to the legs with a single peg on each side so that it can pivot. This layout is a bit of a nightmare because the back slats splay out. Rather than try to get it exactly correct, I attached each slat at the bottom rail with a single dowel so that they could pivot. That let me position them into the upper support and use two pegs there. (To match that design detail in the seat.)
![Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Grass Wood stain Hardwood]()
Gluing up the back slats. The bottom support is done first, then the upper support. There's enough space to slide clamps in between the back supports to glue the upper support. Keeping this square was a challenge.
![Packaging and labeling Publication Liquid Carton Electric blue]()
Hey, I used up a can of linseed oil. That only took about ten years.
![Brown Wood Wood stain Floor Flooring]()
Once I got the back glue-up finished, I cut out and shaped the arms. These need to be bent before the compass roses are inlaid.
Attachments
Scott,Progress Photos
![Wood Flooring Hardwood Wood stain Table]()
Making one of the back supports. The back gets deeper as it goes up, and I cut dadoes to capture the back slats and help even up the spacing. After the steam-bending, the slats are not entirely straight side-to-side. The flat side of this support gets shaped to a curve after it is dadoed and the peg holes are drilled.
![Table Wood Flooring Wood stain Floor]()
The back slats attached to their supports. The bottom (far) support is heftier; it attaches to the legs with a single peg on each side so that it can pivot. This layout is a bit of a nightmare because the back slats splay out. Rather than try to get it exactly correct, I attached each slat at the bottom rail with a single dowel so that they could pivot. That let me position them into the upper support and use two pegs there. (To match that design detail in the seat.)
![Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Grass Wood stain Hardwood]()
Gluing up the back slats. The bottom support is done first, then the upper support. There's enough space to slide clamps in between the back supports to glue the upper support. Keeping this square was a challenge.
![Packaging and labeling Publication Liquid Carton Electric blue]()
Hey, I used up a can of linseed oil. That only took about ten years.
![Brown Wood Wood stain Floor Flooring]()
Once I got the back glue-up finished, I cut out and shaped the arms. These need to be bent before the compass roses are inlaid.
That chair is looking marvelous, ...the next 4 or 5 will probably go together much quicker. ;-)
Work Safely and have Fun. - Grandpa Len.
Attachments
Bending the Arms
Redryder asked about the steam-bending process. I've covered that a little bit earlier in the series, but I bent the arms (well, one so far) today, so I took some photos along the way.
![Table Furniture Wood Electrical wiring Workbench]()
Here's the basic set-up. The box is made out of plywood, dado-ed, glued together and caulked on the seams. It has held up fairly well but is starting to come apart in some places and I've had to reinforce it. The steamer is the standard Rockler kit. The kit comes with the brass fitting to hook the hose to the steam box.
![Wood Hardwood Engineering Plywood Wood stain]()
Here's the bending jig for the arms. For this project, I found that I could use a one-sided form and I didn't need strapping. This jig has to be pretty tall because the arms are mirror images but bend the same way, so the jig has to accommodate an arm facing either way. Notice the rounding on the bending corners to reduce the stress when bending. For reference, here's an arm on the jig:
![Wood Musical instrument accessory Hardwood Wood stain Plywood]()
No action photos of this next part because it is time-critical. After the piece has been steaming sufficiently long (recommended 1 hour per inch) you pull it out of the steamer (with gloves!) and quickly bend it onto the jig. It ends up like this:
![Naval architecture Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Boat Wood stain]()
(The blue painter's tape is there to remind me which side is the top so that I bend it the right way!) What's key to the bending is the heat-it loosens the lignin bonds in the wood and let's it be reshaped. The fact that steam is wet is actually irrelevant-steam just happens to be a good way to move heat around.
![Blue Wood Gas Engineering Machine]()
This view shows that the arm ends up in a graceful curve. If I had wanted sharper bends and a flat middle section, I would have needed a more complex jig (like the one for the back slats).
I find that leaving the piece on the jig for 24 hours yields the most consistent results. If the result isn't quite right, I'll re-steam and re-bend. The wood is more pliable on subsequent steamings.
Redryder asked about the steam-bending process. I've covered that a little bit earlier in the series, but I bent the arms (well, one so far) today, so I took some photos along the way.
Here's the basic set-up. The box is made out of plywood, dado-ed, glued together and caulked on the seams. It has held up fairly well but is starting to come apart in some places and I've had to reinforce it. The steamer is the standard Rockler kit. The kit comes with the brass fitting to hook the hose to the steam box.
Here's the bending jig for the arms. For this project, I found that I could use a one-sided form and I didn't need strapping. This jig has to be pretty tall because the arms are mirror images but bend the same way, so the jig has to accommodate an arm facing either way. Notice the rounding on the bending corners to reduce the stress when bending. For reference, here's an arm on the jig:
No action photos of this next part because it is time-critical. After the piece has been steaming sufficiently long (recommended 1 hour per inch) you pull it out of the steamer (with gloves!) and quickly bend it onto the jig. It ends up like this:
(The blue painter's tape is there to remind me which side is the top so that I bend it the right way!) What's key to the bending is the heat-it loosens the lignin bonds in the wood and let's it be reshaped. The fact that steam is wet is actually irrelevant-steam just happens to be a good way to move heat around.
This view shows that the arm ends up in a graceful curve. If I had wanted sharper bends and a flat middle section, I would have needed a more complex jig (like the one for the back slats).
I find that leaving the piece on the jig for 24 hours yields the most consistent results. If the result isn't quite right, I'll re-steam and re-bend. The wood is more pliable on subsequent steamings.
Attachments
Nicely done.Bending the Arms
Redryder asked about the steam-bending process. I've covered that a little bit earlier in the series, but I bent the arms (well, one so far) today, so I took some photos along the way.
![Table Furniture Wood Electrical wiring Workbench]()
Here's the basic set-up. The box is made out of plywood, dado-ed, glued together and caulked on the seams. It has held up fairly well but is starting to come apart in some places and I've had to reinforce it. The steamer is the standard Rockler kit. The kit comes with the brass fitting to hook the hose to the steam box.
![Wood Hardwood Engineering Plywood Wood stain]()
Here's the bending jig for the arms. For this project, I found that I could use a one-sided form and I didn't need strapping. This jig has to be pretty tall because the arms are mirror images but bend the same way, so the jig has to accommodate an arm facing either way. Notice the rounding on the bending corners to reduce the stress when bending. For reference, here's an arm on the jig:
![Wood Musical instrument accessory Hardwood Wood stain Plywood]()
No action photos of this next part because it is time-critical. After the piece has been steaming sufficiently long (recommended 1 hour per inch) you pull it out of the steamer (with gloves!) and quickly bend it onto the jig. It ends up like this:
![Naval architecture Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Boat Wood stain]()
(The blue painter's tape is there to remind me which side is the top so that I bend it the right way!) What's key to the bending is the heat-it loosens the lignin bonds in the wood and let's it be reshaped. The fact that steam is wet is actually irrelevant-steam just happens to be a good way to move heat around.
![Blue Wood Gas Engineering Machine]()
This view shows that the arm ends up in a graceful curve. If I had wanted sharper bends and a flat middle section, I would have needed a more complex jig (like the one for the back slats).
I find that leaving the piece on the jig for 24 hours yields the most consistent results. If the result isn't quite right, I'll re-steam and re-bend. The wood is more pliable on subsequent steamings.
Certainly adds another dimension (literally) to wood….....................
Attachments
More Arm Work
It's been hard to get any long stretches in the workshop lately, but when I look back I've actually accomplished quite a bit.
After bending the arms for the chair, the next step was to inlay the compass roses. (In retrospect, I might have been better off fitting the arms to the chair and then inlaying the roses rather than the other order.) I marked a reference point on each arm and then taped down the stars to keep them from moving and carefully marked them onto the arm.
![Creative arts Art Wheel Wood Petal]()
Then I sharpened my chisels and defined the edge of the inlay. I place the chisel just inside the marked edge, strike down, and then relieve the cut from the inside.
![Table Wood Engineering Artisan Science]()
I go around twice to take this down to the approximate final depth. This is pretty finicky work and takes a while. I took a long break between the two arms to let my eyes recover!
![Wood Creative arts Natural material Wood stain Hardwood]()
For my practice rose I took out the interior waste with a router plane, but my router plane is far too big for this inlay, and I found it pretty hard not to damage the points. So for these inlays I got a router base for my Dremel tool from Stewart-Macdonald. I suppose I could have gotten a small router plane and maybe I will eventually, but this worked very well.
![Pneumatic tool Drill Wood Power tool Drilling]()
The inlay was about 3/16 of an inch deep. I still managed to ding some of the points.
![Plant Wood Tree Art Flooring]()
For the first rose I repaired these dings after the rose was inlaid. On the second one I was smart enough to make repairs before the inlay.
![Wood Font Material property Wood stain Hardwood]()
It's pretty trivial to trim back any dinged point, glue in a little block, and then cut it to recreate the point. With a little care to match the grain the repair is invisible.
Before gluing in the rose, I took a sharp chisel and tapered back the edges so that it would wedge in. Then I slathered everything in glue and clamped it up.
![Wood Creative arts Art Natural material Plant]()
![Table Wood Wood stain Flooring Floor]()
![Orange Wood Bicycle handlebar Bicycle part Art]()
After the glue had set I sanded the roses flat to the surface of the arm. I wasn't too certain of my ability to hand plane them down without breaking off points or tearing the grain (which goes literally every direction in the rose!) so I stuck with the orbital sander.
The next step was to attach the arms to the chair. There's no photographic evidence, but this was a tense and aggravating process. I spent a lot of time with the sander trying to get the tops of the arm supports flat, without complete success. On one of the sides I had to glue in some shims after I had inadvertantly rounded off the side support. The T shape of the top of the arm supports just didn't lend itself to getting a consistent result. Eventually I got it close enough and quit, figuring that any additional work was only going to make things work. This isn't a joint that is visible, but I'm worried about getting a good solid join.
After that the challenge was to sink two dowels through the arms and into the supports. I had to do avoid the area of the inlay, and (since the dowels will show on the top of the arm) keep the dowels symmetric and in a please arrangement with the rose. Oh, and keep the arms consistent on both sides of the chair with how far forward they extend, how far inward, etc. I made a simple jig to help with that part and then did the dowel holes by blind (careful) measurement. I was really afraid I was going to end up having to make a new arm. Or two. But in the end it turned out fine.
![Wood Wood stain Flooring Hardwood Gas]()
You can see that it's close enough to be visually symmetric. Pfew! In these photos you can see that the roses got a center inlaid. I did this on the practice rose to cover some problems where all the wedges came together. These roses didn't have that problem, but my wife liked the center inlay so much that she wanted it on the real roses. This is fairly trivial-just drilling out a proper sized hole and inserting a dowel. Fortunately I have some walnut dowels on hand from a previous project. Since this is end grain, it looks darker when it is finished which is a nice touch.
![Furniture Wood Flooring Table Floor]()
Next up is putting the last support on the back-this is the one the arms will attach to, so it can't go in until the arms were done-and trimming the top of the back to a gentle arc. But it's starting to look like a chair!
![Wood Plant Automotive design Chair Outdoor furniture]()
It's been hard to get any long stretches in the workshop lately, but when I look back I've actually accomplished quite a bit.
After bending the arms for the chair, the next step was to inlay the compass roses. (In retrospect, I might have been better off fitting the arms to the chair and then inlaying the roses rather than the other order.) I marked a reference point on each arm and then taped down the stars to keep them from moving and carefully marked them onto the arm.
Then I sharpened my chisels and defined the edge of the inlay. I place the chisel just inside the marked edge, strike down, and then relieve the cut from the inside.
I go around twice to take this down to the approximate final depth. This is pretty finicky work and takes a while. I took a long break between the two arms to let my eyes recover!
For my practice rose I took out the interior waste with a router plane, but my router plane is far too big for this inlay, and I found it pretty hard not to damage the points. So for these inlays I got a router base for my Dremel tool from Stewart-Macdonald. I suppose I could have gotten a small router plane and maybe I will eventually, but this worked very well.
The inlay was about 3/16 of an inch deep. I still managed to ding some of the points.
For the first rose I repaired these dings after the rose was inlaid. On the second one I was smart enough to make repairs before the inlay.
It's pretty trivial to trim back any dinged point, glue in a little block, and then cut it to recreate the point. With a little care to match the grain the repair is invisible.
Before gluing in the rose, I took a sharp chisel and tapered back the edges so that it would wedge in. Then I slathered everything in glue and clamped it up.
After the glue had set I sanded the roses flat to the surface of the arm. I wasn't too certain of my ability to hand plane them down without breaking off points or tearing the grain (which goes literally every direction in the rose!) so I stuck with the orbital sander.
The next step was to attach the arms to the chair. There's no photographic evidence, but this was a tense and aggravating process. I spent a lot of time with the sander trying to get the tops of the arm supports flat, without complete success. On one of the sides I had to glue in some shims after I had inadvertantly rounded off the side support. The T shape of the top of the arm supports just didn't lend itself to getting a consistent result. Eventually I got it close enough and quit, figuring that any additional work was only going to make things work. This isn't a joint that is visible, but I'm worried about getting a good solid join.
After that the challenge was to sink two dowels through the arms and into the supports. I had to do avoid the area of the inlay, and (since the dowels will show on the top of the arm) keep the dowels symmetric and in a please arrangement with the rose. Oh, and keep the arms consistent on both sides of the chair with how far forward they extend, how far inward, etc. I made a simple jig to help with that part and then did the dowel holes by blind (careful) measurement. I was really afraid I was going to end up having to make a new arm. Or two. But in the end it turned out fine.
You can see that it's close enough to be visually symmetric. Pfew! In these photos you can see that the roses got a center inlaid. I did this on the practice rose to cover some problems where all the wedges came together. These roses didn't have that problem, but my wife liked the center inlay so much that she wanted it on the real roses. This is fairly trivial-just drilling out a proper sized hole and inserting a dowel. Fortunately I have some walnut dowels on hand from a previous project. Since this is end grain, it looks darker when it is finished which is a nice touch.
Next up is putting the last support on the back-this is the one the arms will attach to, so it can't go in until the arms were done-and trimming the top of the back to a gentle arc. But it's starting to look like a chair!
Attachments
Lessons Learned
This is a wrap-up posting to talk about some of the lessons I learned in making the chair. I like to retrospect a little at the finish of a project to understand what worked, what didn't work, and how to apply those lessons to my craft.
This was the first time I'd done a project with steam-bending. For the most part that worked out fine. The actual process of steam-bending is not as daunting as it first seems. There were some challenges in building the forms-they need to be very sturdy to take the bending stresses, and have to be configured to accept clamps at places where clamps are needed. But the major challenge was cracking. I was bending kiln-dried wood without strapping, so even though I was bending fairly thin strips, there was still some cracking at the bends.
![Brown Amber Wood Tints and shades Pattern]()
The cracking was random-some of the slats bent easily, others cracked. I think that's just a characteristic of using kiln-dried wood. For a future project, I'd try harder to source air-dried wood and/or use strapping. (Although using strapping would have been a challenge on these pieces.)
It was also difficult with steam-bending to get all the slats exactly the same profile. The differences weren't huge, so it wasn't a problem in this (rustic, casual) style furniture. But in a more formal piece it would have been problematic.
![String instrument Wood Automotive tire Automotive wheel system Motor vehicle]()
There was also some side-to-side warping of the bent slats. I'm not sure whether this was due to the steam bending or to something else-perhaps the release of tension within the wood when cut. But it resulted in the gaps between the slats being somewhat irregular.
![Brown Amber Wood Flooring Wood stain]()
Again, this would have been a bigger problem in a more formal piece. It also complicated assembly, which was already difficult enough thanks to the various bends and angles involved.
Another lesson-learned was to pay more attention to the cutting of the slats to preserve the grain figure. To be honest, the wood looked fairly pedestrian before I resawed and cut the slats. It wasn't until I'd done some sanding that I realized that there was a nice grain figure. By careful milling I could have preserved and book-matched the entire figure and kept it continuous across the back and down to the seat. As it was I ended up with a partial match.
![Wood Tints and shades Pattern Close-up Metal]()
With more attention to the wood I might have also noticed that a few of the boards had insect tracks or some other kind of flaw. They didn't seem to affect the strength of the wood, but became more obvious when the piece was finished:
![Brown Wood Plank Varnish Wood stain]()
The tracks and the bend cracks actually ended up giving the piece some character and more of an aged look, so I'm not entirely upset, but it could have turned out worse, and it's something I need to pay more attention to in the future.
Finally, the joinery on the chair is entirely dowels. I used maple dowels in two sizes to provide a contrast to the mahogany. For the larger sized dowels, I also wedged them with walnut to add an additional detail and to pick up the walnut from the compass roses. Unfortunately, walnut is considerably softer than maple, so it didn't work very well as a wedging wood. It tended to just mushroom out and look sloppy:
![Brown Wood Plant Grass Circle]()
In the future I'd probably wedge maple with maple, and dye the wedge to a dark color for the contrast.
This is a wrap-up posting to talk about some of the lessons I learned in making the chair. I like to retrospect a little at the finish of a project to understand what worked, what didn't work, and how to apply those lessons to my craft.
This was the first time I'd done a project with steam-bending. For the most part that worked out fine. The actual process of steam-bending is not as daunting as it first seems. There were some challenges in building the forms-they need to be very sturdy to take the bending stresses, and have to be configured to accept clamps at places where clamps are needed. But the major challenge was cracking. I was bending kiln-dried wood without strapping, so even though I was bending fairly thin strips, there was still some cracking at the bends.
The cracking was random-some of the slats bent easily, others cracked. I think that's just a characteristic of using kiln-dried wood. For a future project, I'd try harder to source air-dried wood and/or use strapping. (Although using strapping would have been a challenge on these pieces.)
It was also difficult with steam-bending to get all the slats exactly the same profile. The differences weren't huge, so it wasn't a problem in this (rustic, casual) style furniture. But in a more formal piece it would have been problematic.
There was also some side-to-side warping of the bent slats. I'm not sure whether this was due to the steam bending or to something else-perhaps the release of tension within the wood when cut. But it resulted in the gaps between the slats being somewhat irregular.
Again, this would have been a bigger problem in a more formal piece. It also complicated assembly, which was already difficult enough thanks to the various bends and angles involved.
Another lesson-learned was to pay more attention to the cutting of the slats to preserve the grain figure. To be honest, the wood looked fairly pedestrian before I resawed and cut the slats. It wasn't until I'd done some sanding that I realized that there was a nice grain figure. By careful milling I could have preserved and book-matched the entire figure and kept it continuous across the back and down to the seat. As it was I ended up with a partial match.
With more attention to the wood I might have also noticed that a few of the boards had insect tracks or some other kind of flaw. They didn't seem to affect the strength of the wood, but became more obvious when the piece was finished:
The tracks and the bend cracks actually ended up giving the piece some character and more of an aged look, so I'm not entirely upset, but it could have turned out worse, and it's something I need to pay more attention to in the future.
Finally, the joinery on the chair is entirely dowels. I used maple dowels in two sizes to provide a contrast to the mahogany. For the larger sized dowels, I also wedged them with walnut to add an additional detail and to pick up the walnut from the compass roses. Unfortunately, walnut is considerably softer than maple, so it didn't work very well as a wedging wood. It tended to just mushroom out and look sloppy:
In the future I'd probably wedge maple with maple, and dye the wedge to a dark color for the contrast.
Attachments
All in all, it's a Great looking chair, nicely done.Lessons Learned
This is a wrap-up posting to talk about some of the lessons I learned in making the chair. I like to retrospect a little at the finish of a project to understand what worked, what didn't work, and how to apply those lessons to my craft.
This was the first time I'd done a project with steam-bending. For the most part that worked out fine. The actual process of steam-bending is not as daunting as it first seems. There were some challenges in building the forms-they need to be very sturdy to take the bending stresses, and have to be configured to accept clamps at places where clamps are needed. But the major challenge was cracking. I was bending kiln-dried wood without strapping, so even though I was bending fairly thin strips, there was still some cracking at the bends.
![Brown Amber Wood Tints and shades Pattern]()
The cracking was random-some of the slats bent easily, others cracked. I think that's just a characteristic of using kiln-dried wood. For a future project, I'd try harder to source air-dried wood and/or use strapping. (Although using strapping would have been a challenge on these pieces.)
It was also difficult with steam-bending to get all the slats exactly the same profile. The differences weren't huge, so it wasn't a problem in this (rustic, casual) style furniture. But in a more formal piece it would have been problematic.
![String instrument Wood Automotive tire Automotive wheel system Motor vehicle]()
There was also some side-to-side warping of the bent slats. I'm not sure whether this was due to the steam bending or to something else-perhaps the release of tension within the wood when cut. But it resulted in the gaps between the slats being somewhat irregular.
![Brown Amber Wood Flooring Wood stain]()
Again, this would have been a bigger problem in a more formal piece. It also complicated assembly, which was already difficult enough thanks to the various bends and angles involved.
Another lesson-learned was to pay more attention to the cutting of the slats to preserve the grain figure. To be honest, the wood looked fairly pedestrian before I resawed and cut the slats. It wasn't until I'd done some sanding that I realized that there was a nice grain figure. By careful milling I could have preserved and book-matched the entire figure and kept it continuous across the back and down to the seat. As it was I ended up with a partial match.
![Wood Tints and shades Pattern Close-up Metal]()
With more attention to the wood I might have also noticed that a few of the boards had insect tracks or some other kind of flaw. They didn't seem to affect the strength of the wood, but became more obvious when the piece was finished:
![Brown Wood Plank Varnish Wood stain]()
The tracks and the bend cracks actually ended up giving the piece some character and more of an aged look, so I'm not entirely upset, but it could have turned out worse, and it's something I need to pay more attention to in the future.
Finally, the joinery on the chair is entirely dowels. I used maple dowels in two sizes to provide a contrast to the mahogany. For the larger sized dowels, I also wedged them with walnut to add an additional detail and to pick up the walnut from the compass roses. Unfortunately, walnut is considerably softer than maple, so it didn't work very well as a wedging wood. It tended to just mushroom out and look sloppy:
![Brown Wood Plant Grass Circle]()
In the future I'd probably wedge maple with maple, and dye the wedge to a dark color for the contrast.
Fine 'Fit and Finish'.
Work Safely and have Fun. - Len
Attachments
I think steam bending mahogany is always a hit and miss affair Scott. I remember trying to bend sapele (a type of mahongany). Out of the four piece I tried, two broke and the other two I managed to bend but even though I left them in the form for just over a week, when I took them out they both twisted and sprang back by different amounts. There are a lot of internal stresses in this kind of wood which makes it impossible to predict what will happen. If you had built it out of beech for example, it would probably be much more consistent in shape. However, it probably wouldn't have looked as nice IMO. You've built a lovely chair which exudes character and I love the inlays on the arms. Nice job.Lessons Learned
This is a wrap-up posting to talk about some of the lessons I learned in making the chair. I like to retrospect a little at the finish of a project to understand what worked, what didn't work, and how to apply those lessons to my craft.
This was the first time I'd done a project with steam-bending. For the most part that worked out fine. The actual process of steam-bending is not as daunting as it first seems. There were some challenges in building the forms-they need to be very sturdy to take the bending stresses, and have to be configured to accept clamps at places where clamps are needed. But the major challenge was cracking. I was bending kiln-dried wood without strapping, so even though I was bending fairly thin strips, there was still some cracking at the bends.
![Brown Amber Wood Tints and shades Pattern]()
The cracking was random-some of the slats bent easily, others cracked. I think that's just a characteristic of using kiln-dried wood. For a future project, I'd try harder to source air-dried wood and/or use strapping. (Although using strapping would have been a challenge on these pieces.)
It was also difficult with steam-bending to get all the slats exactly the same profile. The differences weren't huge, so it wasn't a problem in this (rustic, casual) style furniture. But in a more formal piece it would have been problematic.
![String instrument Wood Automotive tire Automotive wheel system Motor vehicle]()
There was also some side-to-side warping of the bent slats. I'm not sure whether this was due to the steam bending or to something else-perhaps the release of tension within the wood when cut. But it resulted in the gaps between the slats being somewhat irregular.
![Brown Amber Wood Flooring Wood stain]()
Again, this would have been a bigger problem in a more formal piece. It also complicated assembly, which was already difficult enough thanks to the various bends and angles involved.
Another lesson-learned was to pay more attention to the cutting of the slats to preserve the grain figure. To be honest, the wood looked fairly pedestrian before I resawed and cut the slats. It wasn't until I'd done some sanding that I realized that there was a nice grain figure. By careful milling I could have preserved and book-matched the entire figure and kept it continuous across the back and down to the seat. As it was I ended up with a partial match.
![Wood Tints and shades Pattern Close-up Metal]()
With more attention to the wood I might have also noticed that a few of the boards had insect tracks or some other kind of flaw. They didn't seem to affect the strength of the wood, but became more obvious when the piece was finished:
![Brown Wood Plank Varnish Wood stain]()
The tracks and the bend cracks actually ended up giving the piece some character and more of an aged look, so I'm not entirely upset, but it could have turned out worse, and it's something I need to pay more attention to in the future.
Finally, the joinery on the chair is entirely dowels. I used maple dowels in two sizes to provide a contrast to the mahogany. For the larger sized dowels, I also wedged them with walnut to add an additional detail and to pick up the walnut from the compass roses. Unfortunately, walnut is considerably softer than maple, so it didn't work very well as a wedging wood. It tended to just mushroom out and look sloppy:
![Brown Wood Plant Grass Circle]()
In the future I'd probably wedge maple with maple, and dye the wedge to a dark color for the contrast.
Attachments
Thanks for that thought, Brit. It hadn't really occurred to me that the wood choice might be part of the problem!Lessons Learned
This is a wrap-up posting to talk about some of the lessons I learned in making the chair. I like to retrospect a little at the finish of a project to understand what worked, what didn't work, and how to apply those lessons to my craft.
This was the first time I'd done a project with steam-bending. For the most part that worked out fine. The actual process of steam-bending is not as daunting as it first seems. There were some challenges in building the forms-they need to be very sturdy to take the bending stresses, and have to be configured to accept clamps at places where clamps are needed. But the major challenge was cracking. I was bending kiln-dried wood without strapping, so even though I was bending fairly thin strips, there was still some cracking at the bends.
![Brown Amber Wood Tints and shades Pattern]()
The cracking was random-some of the slats bent easily, others cracked. I think that's just a characteristic of using kiln-dried wood. For a future project, I'd try harder to source air-dried wood and/or use strapping. (Although using strapping would have been a challenge on these pieces.)
It was also difficult with steam-bending to get all the slats exactly the same profile. The differences weren't huge, so it wasn't a problem in this (rustic, casual) style furniture. But in a more formal piece it would have been problematic.
![String instrument Wood Automotive tire Automotive wheel system Motor vehicle]()
There was also some side-to-side warping of the bent slats. I'm not sure whether this was due to the steam bending or to something else-perhaps the release of tension within the wood when cut. But it resulted in the gaps between the slats being somewhat irregular.
![Brown Amber Wood Flooring Wood stain]()
Again, this would have been a bigger problem in a more formal piece. It also complicated assembly, which was already difficult enough thanks to the various bends and angles involved.
Another lesson-learned was to pay more attention to the cutting of the slats to preserve the grain figure. To be honest, the wood looked fairly pedestrian before I resawed and cut the slats. It wasn't until I'd done some sanding that I realized that there was a nice grain figure. By careful milling I could have preserved and book-matched the entire figure and kept it continuous across the back and down to the seat. As it was I ended up with a partial match.
![Wood Tints and shades Pattern Close-up Metal]()
With more attention to the wood I might have also noticed that a few of the boards had insect tracks or some other kind of flaw. They didn't seem to affect the strength of the wood, but became more obvious when the piece was finished:
![Brown Wood Plank Varnish Wood stain]()
The tracks and the bend cracks actually ended up giving the piece some character and more of an aged look, so I'm not entirely upset, but it could have turned out worse, and it's something I need to pay more attention to in the future.
Finally, the joinery on the chair is entirely dowels. I used maple dowels in two sizes to provide a contrast to the mahogany. For the larger sized dowels, I also wedged them with walnut to add an additional detail and to pick up the walnut from the compass roses. Unfortunately, walnut is considerably softer than maple, so it didn't work very well as a wedging wood. It tended to just mushroom out and look sloppy:
![Brown Wood Plant Grass Circle]()
In the future I'd probably wedge maple with maple, and dye the wedge to a dark color for the contrast.
And thanks everyone for the nice words.
Attachments
I just now caught this blog series, and wanted to thank you for taking the time to document your project! The chair turned out beautifully, and you should be very proud of your work!Lessons Learned
This is a wrap-up posting to talk about some of the lessons I learned in making the chair. I like to retrospect a little at the finish of a project to understand what worked, what didn't work, and how to apply those lessons to my craft.
This was the first time I'd done a project with steam-bending. For the most part that worked out fine. The actual process of steam-bending is not as daunting as it first seems. There were some challenges in building the forms-they need to be very sturdy to take the bending stresses, and have to be configured to accept clamps at places where clamps are needed. But the major challenge was cracking. I was bending kiln-dried wood without strapping, so even though I was bending fairly thin strips, there was still some cracking at the bends.
![Brown Amber Wood Tints and shades Pattern]()
The cracking was random-some of the slats bent easily, others cracked. I think that's just a characteristic of using kiln-dried wood. For a future project, I'd try harder to source air-dried wood and/or use strapping. (Although using strapping would have been a challenge on these pieces.)
It was also difficult with steam-bending to get all the slats exactly the same profile. The differences weren't huge, so it wasn't a problem in this (rustic, casual) style furniture. But in a more formal piece it would have been problematic.
![String instrument Wood Automotive tire Automotive wheel system Motor vehicle]()
There was also some side-to-side warping of the bent slats. I'm not sure whether this was due to the steam bending or to something else-perhaps the release of tension within the wood when cut. But it resulted in the gaps between the slats being somewhat irregular.
![Brown Amber Wood Flooring Wood stain]()
Again, this would have been a bigger problem in a more formal piece. It also complicated assembly, which was already difficult enough thanks to the various bends and angles involved.
Another lesson-learned was to pay more attention to the cutting of the slats to preserve the grain figure. To be honest, the wood looked fairly pedestrian before I resawed and cut the slats. It wasn't until I'd done some sanding that I realized that there was a nice grain figure. By careful milling I could have preserved and book-matched the entire figure and kept it continuous across the back and down to the seat. As it was I ended up with a partial match.
![Wood Tints and shades Pattern Close-up Metal]()
With more attention to the wood I might have also noticed that a few of the boards had insect tracks or some other kind of flaw. They didn't seem to affect the strength of the wood, but became more obvious when the piece was finished:
![Brown Wood Plank Varnish Wood stain]()
The tracks and the bend cracks actually ended up giving the piece some character and more of an aged look, so I'm not entirely upset, but it could have turned out worse, and it's something I need to pay more attention to in the future.
Finally, the joinery on the chair is entirely dowels. I used maple dowels in two sizes to provide a contrast to the mahogany. For the larger sized dowels, I also wedged them with walnut to add an additional detail and to pick up the walnut from the compass roses. Unfortunately, walnut is considerably softer than maple, so it didn't work very well as a wedging wood. It tended to just mushroom out and look sloppy:
![Brown Wood Plant Grass Circle]()
In the future I'd probably wedge maple with maple, and dye the wedge to a dark color for the contrast.
Attachments
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