6 dining room chairs
hi there guys. remember about a year ago, i built this diningtable? i never build the chairs for it - until justnow...for a couple of reasons. first of all, it's quite difficult...to saythe least. umm... you got all these angled mortises and tenonsand that can be scary and many woodworkers just shy away from that kind of project. like i did. i this video i'm going to show you guys whatkind of jigs and templates i was using to
make it a lot easier. also the rest of this chair i will leave formy wife because i'm sure, what ever i'm going to choose - she would not approve. that's a wisdom right there. i believe these parts are the most difficultto make in a chair. it's a side rails that come in like here...sothis would be the back of the chair and here is the front. and the thing that makes it so difficult isbecause you have these angled tenons in here. and umm there's couple ways to make it easier.
the way i did it is i took this angle...theone you can see here. it's about 5 degrees and i cut a piece ofwood with this...with this angle and then built a jig out of it. so in this jig i put the side rail in hereand by using this fence i route this and the angle i was talking about is here. so it keeps this in 5 degree angle comparedto this table. when i have done this side i just simply changethis fence and now it's set up so i can route this side. oh and if you wonder...if you wonder whatare these blocks are in here...i just keep
them in there so the router bit doesn't ripthe sides - because that's what it very easily. so these are just some sort of sacrifice pieces. and now here we have 5 degree angled tenon. later i will cut these sides away and keepthe middle part. as the other end is now routed, i can placeit on top of my drawing...find correct location and then i can see here...where is the cuttingdistance. first i mark the shoulder of the tenon...bothsides. then i connect the lines. next i will mark the length of my tenon.
check it one more time. now i can use the table saw to cut this partaway and route this tenon in here. i have to adjust the table saw blade in 5degree angle. to make the back legs and back rest - i'm using this kindof template which i already copy from existing chair. so it has this correct curvature of the legand the back rest. so this is also very easy way to copy it tothis piece of wood. see the difference?
after finishing the initial sanding of theseleg parts - i started marking my tenons...umm mortises in these areas. so this is where the seat will extend. and...because this is not in the middle, it'smore on this side... i didn't realize that earlier but once i startedlooking how these tenons are located in side rails... it's not sitting in the middle. it's more on the inside side. and that gave me a little problem as thisarea is too narrow - because all the weight will be on these corners.
to make this area more stronger, i have tomove this tenon little bit towards the back. i started making these mortises by first drawingthe location... and here is the one that i said i have to move a notch on the back sideso it wouldn't make this area inside here too weak. anyways, so i marked them already. after that i'm going to use this templatei made where i cut this square hole and i'm going to place it on top and center it withmy drawing and that hole is designed to be used with this guide in here. so this guide prevents it from moving sidewaysand i should be able to get perfect mortise
every time. and also i'm using this depth gauge in hereand i put the stop in a way that this will be the mortise depth. before these tenons fit in to the mortisesi just routed - i first need to clean it. then use the rasp to make these corners round. by purpose i left these little bit too bigjust to make sure that when i start fitting them, i can get very tight fit. because it's really easy to cut too much. now it's time to start making front legs.
so i cut this piece of wood but it came withrounded edges - so first i need to cut them off and square it. after that i will trace some kind of designin here and cut it off and see how it matches with back legs i made. first i want to mark how deep this leg willgo. and actually i'm just going to draw straightline down all the way. so up here, this area will be rectangularbecause this is the area where the seat frame will go around... so i'm going to do all themortises in this area. from here i will just go down and somewherelike half way down i start to narrow it to
make some kind of curve in it. and i just came up with an idea that probablyuse this same guide that i used with the back legs...to do the curving. to shape the front legs curve i was thinkingi'm going to use my circular saw. it might seem a little brutal but it's justcouple straight lines so it doesn't matter. it's very fast. fast like i said. it's curved just a little bit and it's quiterough but i still need to sand it many times over.
i just marked the mortises in my front legsand these are the mortises that will come backwards like when i was talking about that5 degree angle... well, in fact it's not 5 degree it's 85 or 95 depending on which sideyou're looking from. but anyways, i keep talking about 5 degreeangle. so what i can do next is i take my template,place it on top of here and start routing just like i did with back legs. next on my 'to do' list is route these mortiseson these back legs. but there's a little problem because as youcan see it's curved. so here's my template.
i place it on top and i cannot really clampit down from here because if i do it would just arch this area so it doesn't match withmy mortises anymore. so i came up with this idea that if cut v-shapedgroove in here i should be able to clamp it without bending...making this arch. and now i should be able to bend it withoutbreaking it. yup, see? this is how i set up the template with two clamps and also clamp down the back legs to the table. so i guess i'm ready to do the routing.
i was doing some test fitting and seeing howall these parts are fitting together and seems at the moment it still needs a lot of work. mostly just sanding and also i need to cleansome of these mortises because they don't quite fit yet. and umm after that i can take my template,clamp it in here and drill these holes for the crest rail and the bottom rail. so what i'm doing here now is i copy thisangle so i can transfer it into a piece of wood... and cut this corner supports. now right after i cut these pieces off, iput a number on them so i can remember which
part goes where. there's one thing i need to take care of beforei can move on to the next phase. see this area? it's way too thick and i didn't have thiskind of wood more thinner, so i have to come up with some idea how to shave that off. i started sketching the back rest and whatkind of design i want to have on it. umm.. i plan to make wood carving...quite simpledesig actually but the thing that makes it more interesting is that i have to make 6f them.
so i decided i'm gonna do a template fromplywood. i think we are now ready to start gluing thingstogether. we will start with the backrest and once theseare all dried, we can attach the front legs and the side rails.