Saturday saw me trailing up eastwards again - oh, wait, did I say about going up to Liskeard on Thursday? Well I did, and didn't buy anything at Bob's Tool Box but the venison sausages at The Globe in Lostwithiel were nice. Anyway, went virtually to Liskeard again on Saturday, this time because it was the Cornwall Garden Society's Spring Show and when mothers are wont to go to such things there's no gain-saying them. Not exactly my thing but apparently my presence was required. Still, not all a dead loss. It could be that I've found a potential supplier of wood - air-dried, local stuff - who's not far away and indicated that he'd deliver too. A tentative huzzah then. Got to give him a call and go and have a look - when I can get past the benighted answer phone. Hate those darn things...
Chair-wise it's been a bit o' this an' a bit o' that on the whole. The main, nerve-racking task was trimming the protrouding leg tenons. I was brave and took off the bulk with a saw - Japanese has having the thinnest blade and narrowest kerf to cause the least damage if I boobed. Went okay. Once I'd done that I discovered a couple of the wedges hadn't quite filled the gaps at one end of the sawn kerf, so a bit of work with wedge offcuts and glue was required. 
I then finished up with the gouge - bit of de ja vu working on the seat with the gouge and so forth again. Seems a long time ago... I've got that darn thing flippin' sharp now. Not only did it slice through the beech like buttah, but a light brush of the edge against my leg resulted in carefully severing a few fibres and a hole in my trews. Never touched the skin. Not sure whether to be annoyed or impressed. It made up for not drawing blood later, you'll be not-particularly-surprised to know...
To finish off the tenons I confess I turned to powered means. If you remember I thought the right half (as you look at it) of the seat needed a little more work anyway, so two birds... After a practice run I took the angle grinder and some 40g to it, which made short and scary work of the job. Makes a helluva mess though, so I'm glad I waited until I could do it outside. There's a definite knack to it and by the time I'd followed up with 60g I was kinda getting the idea. Nevertheless work with scraper was required for the odd place where the knack was knackered, before I followed up with the random orbit sander. Man, how I hate sanding. Next task on the seat is to cut the legs to length but I need to do a little checking on what angles and height to go for before I attempt that.
Meanwhile work on the arm has been going on. In JB fashion I've been using a 4x2 in an engineer's vice held in the front vice of the bench to clamp the arm to in order to get good access. Somewhere under the router mat you can probably make out the base of the engineer's vice bolted to a block held in the front vice. The spring clamps are holding in a patch while the glue dries. Sigh. A bit pinged off as I came round the inside curve with the spokeshave; my own fault, I was taking too heavy a cut. It's not an invisible repair, but given all the joins and alterations of grain direction between the four pieces of the arm anyway, I don't think it'll scream out its presence.
Anyway, it's getting there. Practically at a point where I could opt for a low back Library Chair if I fancied. Mind you, not this low backed... I'm a bit miffed that the tiny difference in arm thickness is making its presence felt rather more than I'd hoped. I fear I'm probably going to have to do something about it. Heigh ho.
Looks pretty comfy to me. It's also looking like a chair. Hmm. Fancy that...
ReplyDeleteThe arm on the right side does look a little thicker. Doesn't look like it take much, though.
Take care--and thanks agin for the Greenslade info.
Mike