Spindles

I thought that I had used up all my mistakes earlier.  Today I was proved wrong.

I decided to go with 1-3/8” spindles, but my 8/4 stock measured in at about 1-7/8”.  I could have simply planed it down to the right thickness, but that seemed like a huge waste of some very expensive wood, so I figured I could resaw it to 1-1/2” than plane from there.  This would leave me with a thin slice of “waste” that I can recycle into other projects.  To start, I had to change the blade on my band saw back to the 3/4" for the resaw.  I did this fairly quickly, but something was just not right.  The blade tended to “flutter”.  I tweaked the tension, the guides, and the tracking, but no joy.  I just couldn’t get it to run smoothly.  Hey, it was going around, so I went ahead and started cutting.   As I got to the last two feet of the 6’ board, I noticed some smoke, but assumed the blade was just cooking a bit because the wood had some internal stress and was squeezing against it.  Then the blade took a hard right from the cutting line.  I tried to get back on line, but it was a struggle.  When I finally made it completely through the board, I saw that although the blade only moved a little at the top, it moved significantly on the bottom.  In fact enough to go beyond the 1-3/8” I was shooting for.  Arrrgh!  That end of the board was wasted, so I would have to use another 8/4 board (my last) to make the rest of the spindles.  I took a look around the band saw and found the culprit.  I managed to burn out the bottom rear guide bearing.  The good news is that this happened before and I bought a spare bearing.

After replacing the bearing, and switching back to my new 3/8” blade, I marked out the pattern and cut all of the spindle side profiles.  Wow, this is a lot of cutting!  Next, I traced out the front profile on the first spindle.  Following Brock’s recommendation, I also marked the center of the piece.  I cut the right side with no problem, but when I went to cut the left side, I inadvertently started cutting the centerline.  Doh!  Good thing I cut two extra spindles.  I’ll use this one as a practice piece to test the shaping and the fit to the chair.  Lee Valley shipped the dowel cutters (a.k.a. pencil sharpeners) today.

Lesson Learned:  If you are going to draw lines on the stock that will NOT be cut, use a different colored pencil.

I finished cutting out the rest of the spindles and they came out pretty good.  The radii on the bottom of the spindles were too tight to cut on the band saw, so I cut those using my scroll saw.  Notice that I renumbered the #9 spindle to be #1B.  :)

I was limited in my choices as far as grain selection.  There may be some “short grain” issues that would weaken the spindles, but I guess I’ll find that out once they are in the chair.  I think the current batch matches well.  If I have to use #8, there will be some lighter heartwood showing.  One of the spindles had a knot in it and I was worried about that, but I cut it out anyway.  It turns out that the knot is now just grazing the corner of the upper spindle and that part will be shaped away.

I’ll have to get more 8/4 walnut before I can make the rockers.  While I’m waiting on that, I think I’ll move on to some shaping and get the legs, arms, and headrest screwed into place.  I’m finding that at least 50% of my time goes into tool setup, planning, watching the DVD, or just staring at Maloof chair pictures and trying to figure out the lines.  I’m frustrated with my mistakes again, but I have made progress.  As long as things are moving forward, I know I’ll reach the end eventually.