Ok, here is what the settee looks like:
Unfortunately, this looks very much like a photo from an older post. It is not the same photo. I made a mistake on routing the edge profile. I profiled the bottom of a side rail rather than the top. I was rushing and I did not mark where I needed to cut. The lesson: layout lines and markings are critical to avoid silly mistakes like this! Now, I may have been able to call it a feature - but with the brackets below the rails this option was not acceptable. Those brackets need a sharp 90 degree edge at the bottom of the rail.
Also, if you recall, my very original front rail warped considerably during the early stages of this project which required purchasing another piece of 5/4 lumber for the rails/stretchers. As I milled this lumber I realized at the time that I was not happy with this new lumber selection. The color was too brown (vs salmon pink) and had way too many brownish mineral spots that looked too much like burn marks. Another thing is that I designed the front rail too thin - which would require gluing on a secondary wood for strength and for the rabbet that the seat would rest upon. Also, the brownish rails did not match the pinkish brackets below the rails.
Too many lumber variants for a fine piece of furniture!
Given this, I decided to redo the rails. Unfortunately, to preserve grain continuity and color matching and given the angles I ended up redoing the 2 side rails, the front rail, the 2 side stretchers and the center stretcher. I also had to redo the brackets. A lot of re-milling and re-tenoning!
After going through this new exercise, I'm very happy with the new lumber selection. I purchased 6/4 this time to allow for a thicker front rail. In fact, the lumber may even be from the same tree as the 8/4 I used for the legs and rear posts.
I also had enough lumber to replace what I had for the crest rail. This means that the front rail, side rails, side stretchers, center stretcher, brackets, and the crest rail all come from the same 6/4 piece of wood, which matches very nicely with what I used for the legs, posts and the back rail and stretcher (which all came from 8/4). Much better!
Oh yes - I was not happy with the design of the crest rail. It took me awhile to figure out why - but I finally realized why. So, I brought down the drafting table and re-drew the crest rail . The original design had too much of an S curve going on with the width narrowing in the center. I redid the curve so it is more of an arc along its entire length until it flattens at the end to meet the rear posts. The crest rail is also the same width along the entire length. In the photo below you see only the top of the new crest rail.
Of course, I had to redo the templates. But I made the process much easier than before. I traced the top of the curve onto 1/4" plywood using carbon paper, took it to the bandsaw and then faired to the line using a spokeshave and sand paper. Then, to establish the bottom of the curve I simply used a compass:
The compass has a piece of lead on one end and a needle point on the other. I simply followed the top curve to establish the bottom curve. You see 2 lines at the bottom in the photo above. This represents the rabbet which will be hidden by the upholstery. I simply used the bandsaw and spokeshave to fair to this line. Fast and easier than all the router setups I used in an earlier post!
The new template represents half of the crest rail. I will make one more template later off of this one that represents the entire length of the crest rail. Just flip this one around to get the other half. (There is extra plywood on each end - half of the crest rail is represented by the 2 faint vertical lines in the photo above).
2 STEPS FORWARD, 5 STEPS BACKWARD, AND NOW ONE STEP FORWARD! I still need to redo the center stretcher to finally get caught up.
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