Back on the job after 3 weeks hiking mountain trails in the South Islands of New Zealand, then returning home with Bronchitis (although I was wearing a mask on the plane, passengers preferred to sit with the crying babies than listen to me cough and wheeze!). A few more weeks to recover. First day in the workshop this weekend.
First task was to glue the arms sections together. You will recall that they are reinforced with dowels.
In a similar build, where the sections needed to be clamped together, it was possible to leave "ears" as the blanks were wider/thicker. I could not do that here, and so decided to epoxy these ears on ...
Well, it wasn't particularly successful, even allowing for 24 hours cure time. The ears broke off.
All I could do was clamp the ear on, and pray this would hold.
Later I realised that the problem was that the dowels I used were too tight, and the force needed to drive them home was unexpected. Lesson learned for all - if using epoxy, which is gap filling, the dowels has be a slip fit rather than a force fit. Of course, it would have been easier if I had known this beforehand!
Once all was together, now in one piece (or two pieces if you count two chairs), the rasping and spokeshaving began ...
The aim now was to get the arms closer. This is all slow work, a bit here and a bit there, return to check the symmetry and shaping, and a bit more off. Work stopped to redrill the dowel holes that hold the arms to the legs. There had been a little movement while I was away, or I have measured inaccurately the at the start. It is important that the arms-legs join with as little stress to the joint as possible.
A couple of progress shots of shaping thus far - lots still to come, but its getting to look like the original chair now.
Regards from Perth
Derek
