Sticking with it

It must be said, if I had to make such a silly New Year's Resolution as "I will not be buying tools unless I need them", choosing to make a chair was the ideal project to give me the excuse to claim plenty of "need". Yeah, I did a Bad Thing and put the plastic where my tool-making should have been and bought a rounder by Ray Iles courtesy of Classic Hand Tools. As we've come to expect, order placed on Thursday, delivered on Friday morning, put to work on Saturday. Bellissimo. And for any of the nay sayers who claim you can't buy a new tool ready to work straight out of the box, I say get one of these then. Except it came in a bag and not a box, but you know what I mean... Worked a treat and gave me the 5/8" thickness in the middle of the long sticks that I was worrying about without having to break sweat.



So stick shaping and sanding went on apace over the weekend. Took me about 30 minutes a long stick by the end just for the shaping with a spokeshave, which is slooooowwwww, but not as slow as when I started... This is an irritating stage of proceedings because a lot of effort's being expended but it doesn't look like anything much has happened. Just trust me, eh? And yes, I know my attempt at a less cluttered back drop is pants. Let's not talk about it.



Anyway we're back to endless wiped on coats of shellac (sound familiar?), which at least has the virtue of drying nice and fast in this heat. Plus the nature of chair construction provides me with a ready-made drying rack. Excellent. Still got to cut the short sticks to near final length, kerfs for the wedges and then I suppose it's a case of glue, brute force and prayer...



Then there's the crest rail to do. Ack.