A little bit of this, a little bit of that

My day job is putting a crimp into my woodworking productivity.  Last weekend I spent shaping the front legs into the seat.  I used the bandsaw to round off the joint first.  Then I refined it with a rasp.  The smooth blend of the joint into the seat was made with a rotary rasp in my dremel tool, followed by a 1/2" sanding wheel in the dremel, and finally by some hand sanding using a dowel wrapped in 100 grit sandpaper.  This is a painstaking process because I was afraid of taking off too much material.  Overall, I spent about 3 hours per leg.  Here are some pictures of the result.  Obviously there is still more work to do.

This weekend I started shaping the headrest.  I tilted the bandsaw table and cut the top and bottom of the headrest to form a rough curve.  A rasp and file were used to continue the shaping.  I used the random orbital sander to clean it up.  Notice that the sides of the headrest that meet the back legs were not shaped.  That will be done once the pieces are screwed together to make sure the joints blend together correctly.

The next parts I attacked were the spindles.  I’m choosing not to crown the front of the spindles. I think that the additional surface area will add more support.  Crowning the back of the spindles was no problem.  Again, I used just a rasp and file, followed by sanding.

 My 1/2" and 3/8” Veritas dowel makers (a.k.a. pencil sharpeners) arrived this week.  I was anxious to try them.  I started with the spare spindle that I nearly cut in half so that I could practice.  The corners at each end were rounded using a rasp, and then I twisted on the dowel tool.  My first attempt ended in a huge chip out.  I eased up on my pressure to take just light cuts and got better results.  I had to be very careful to avoid the tool really digging into the wood and tearing out the corners.  I found that a combination of filing the piece close to the correct size and then using the dowel tool worked best.  On the 1/2" end, I noticed that the dowel created was not aligned with the curve of the spindle.  The tool also started hitting the bottom edge of the wider spindle shoulder preventing me from cutting the full length of the dowel.  After spending the money for these tools, I’m frustrated with the poor results.  I think I can do better shaping the dowel by hand.  Maybe I’m doing something wrong, or I just need more practice…I don’t know.  If anybody out there has suggestions, please leave me a comment.

There may be a problem with the spindles.  I just blindly followed the pattern when cutting out the parts.  Now, some of the spindle ends may be too thin.  Especially on the 1/2" end.  If I cut off some of the end, I might be able to recover and get a 1/2" dowel that completely fills the hole in the seat.  This would have the effect of lowering the wider portion of the spindle and I’m concerned about how that will look.  I will just have to try it and see.  I can’t complete the spindles until I have the rest of the chair assembled with the headrest in place, so I’ll just think about it some more.