oak | Flying ShavingsFlying Shavings

Well, it will be six-legged by next Wednesday!

This is what it looks like today:

I’ve been working on the back today, between getting stuff ready for Otley Show etc. The two ‘horns’ on the ends of the crest rail will be removed after final assembly, they are just there so I can whack the thing together/apart. It now fits together, so I’ve drilled the 5/16ths holes in the crest rail, but not in the tenon yet, as they will be draw-bored. That is, the hole through the mortice marked onto the tenon and then offset and the hole drilled a might closer to the tenon shoulders to pull the joint together, pure 15th century magic.

I had fun setting out the outline of the top. The middle section I drew as two overlapping arcs to get an interesting shape.

Then I drew in the curves above the top of the stiles. Good what can be done with a pencil and a piece of string, eh?

The crest rail’s chamfer and lambs tongues (merp!) are marked out but will be cut in situ at Hawes next week when I assemble the whole thing including hammering in pegs, cursing, adjusting, wishing I’d done some things differently, growling, chatting with the public, and hopefully finally relaxing in said shepherds chair (Didn’t appreciate you were a shepherd as well as all the other stuff I notice – Ed. I’m not – FS)

Now where was I? Keep getting interrupted by courses, stove remodelling, fitting doors, skirting boards, bees etc, etc.

Well yesterday I found I had to split out some more oak for a back panel for the chair. The butt was not so big, but nonetheless still needed the winch to haul it onto the trailer. It turned out to be heavily infected with something oak is prone to but which I couldn’t identify, however, the timber that isn’t rotten is a warm brown. I’ll be making the side wings from it which need to be as light as possible to maintain the bottom heavy weighting for stability.

Here’s me doing some speed splitting – nearly as good as watching paint dry.

(Did I notice the head come off the sledge-hammer? Really! -Ed)

Today I’ve been fitting the panels in the back. At first I was going to have them raised with a small upstanding rebate and worked them up so using a fillister plane and a little finishing plane for the chamfer:

Eventually I decided to go for a less formal fielding without the step as in the East Riddlesden chair:

It’s a more colloquial style more fitted for an outdoor location, so here it is dry fitted:

The riven oak is producing some decent grain patterns, the storytellers will need to beware of this eye in the back of their necks!

Next up will be stopped chamfers to the frame and then the arms and seat, and finally attaching the back frame to the seat frame – no chair has been built like this before (Good job too – Ed)

I rebuilt the stove today as the firebox was just too big; that was what caused the flue fire. I only need a slow fire to produce smoke in Summer to keep the midges at bay. I decided to try keeping the smoke a bit more under control by adding a plate from scrap steel plate to join the flue to the fire bricks:

It seems to work very well, with almost all the smoke going up the flue. With the amount of firebrick in there I should be able to cook potatoes in 25 minutes.