Leggin' it

I can see I was at fault. You can't ask for opinions when you haven't said what you've got in mind - sorry. I think I'm going for something that's a bit stand-alone-ish, if that makes any sense. Bit like instead of having a group of trees in a garden (a public garden that is, not a back garden!) you have one on its own as a "specimen" tree. By no stretch of the imagination is this going to be any kind of specimen (unless it's a disaster, when it'll be one of entirely the wrong sort..) but equally it's not one of a group of chairs or going to be used at a table. I won't say "throne-like", 'cos it might give the recipient ideas above their station... Also it's near impossible to judge anything without the legs in place. To which end...

Finally the muse arrived and I suddenly just felt I could turn those pesky tenons. Dunno why it is I have this sort of feeling about task in a project, but previous experience shows I ignore the signs at my peril. So I got them as tight as I could, then tweaked them with the left over 80g strip of alu-zirc from the drum sander piece.

The moment of truth with a quick test run with the tenons half way home to see whether I totally fouled up the angles or not. Well, they're not perfect, but on the other hand they don't look too bad either. I'll put this down as a result I think; at this stage anyway... Perishing stressful though. The turning was the worst. I knew I was tensing up my jaw while I concentrated on getting the tenons just so, but even when I was conscious of it I couldn't stop myself. Amazing anyone does this for relaxation...


Cutting the wedges was just a case of getting the bandsaw set up for the angle, providing some means of getting uniform wedge thickness, and making sure the bits didn't drop down the hole in the insert. Strips of tape dealt with the last two problems, the Bevel Boss and a sliding bevel the first.

Anyway, lots of nervous checking on fit, lining up glue and hammer and so forth later, and I went for the glue bottle. I don't know yet if it's all worked okay (I haven't looked) but I whaled away on those legs seating them home, and likewise on the wedges, so finger's crossed. You can see what a tip the place gets in when I'm in the middle of something, can't you...

Alas, looking at the rear view here, it seems like the rear right (front left in this pic) leg may have a slightly off angle. Merde. Maybe it's just the pic; afterall, if I didn't notice at the time, it can't be too glaring, can it..? At least it's reached the point where, worst case scenario, once the legs are cut to length, I can slap on some finish and call it a stool by the middle of May.

It's kinda cool, isn't it? I mean, it looks sort of like it should. I'm always surprised when that happens - how did I do that? sort of thing. Despite all the troubles I can see why chair making can be addictive...