Green & Green Settee Part X

The arms of the Blacker House chair have a wonderful serpentine shape.  The arms for this settee copies that shape. 

My plywood template is too long to fit on the bottom of the arm so I trace out the shape on some heavy paper and truncate the front so it would fit.  Now, due to the inevitable vagaries of the construction process, the paper template is a tad too wide.  Much of that can be attributed to the bloating effect of pencil lines (or should that be "affect" - I get dreadfully confused with "effect" vs "affect").  No problem.  Trace one side so the front/back connects properly, then move the template a bit and trace the other side so the front/back on that side connects properly.  Nice thing about shaping is that there is some wiggle room and aesthetics rather than the necessity of a tight joint is the main determinant.

 

In the photo above note that one side is left uncut so it can be a reference edge on the bandsaw.  First task is to level the sides at the front.  I'm careful to avoid removing any wood at the bottom since it is perfectly mated with the leg.  I use a hand plane and plane across the grain.  Actually, I later switched to a large shoulder plane which worked better.

Using another paper template snippet, I trace out the front side profile and take it to the bandsaw followed by a sanding drum on my drill press.  While I am a fan of the rasp/file technique, using the rasp to smooth out the bandsaw marks in the photo below is a rather difficult procedure since the risk of blowing out the grain on either side is extremely high.  However, it can be done, as that is the way I handled the Blacker House arm chair.

I'm using 60 grit on the sanding drum.  It still took a long time.  One of these days I plan on getting an oscillating spindle sander which I think would work a lot faster with less chance of burning.  I only go up to 80 grit then call it quits as I'm worried about burning.   I use a file to clean up the sanding marks.  (Note that there is a risk of prematurely damaging the file since sanding grit can get stuck in the wood and do some damage to any edge tools.)

With the front shaped, I now shape the sides of the arm.  After taking it to the bandsaw I use a template and a shaper cutter.  Nice thing about the shaper cutter is that I can easily flip the cutter and reverse the direction of rotation to handle grain direction without modifying the template setup.  On a router table one would have to flip the workpiece and template and then switch from a top to a bottom bearing flush cutter (or vise versa).  However, given the shape of the front of the arm this would not be possible unless one had a very narrow router table or unless one flush cuts by hand.  At this point I would rather grab the rasp, file, and spokeshave rather than mess with a router table.

It is tough to get a perfect transition between the front that was shaped earlier with a handplane and the rear that is shaped on the shaper.  I use a spokeshave to smooth out this transition.  Also note that, as with the paper template, I had to adjust the template a bit when switching from one side to the other.

After sanding with 120 and 150 grit here are the arms.

Now is the time to cut the front spline groove.  On the Blacker House arm chair I chopped and pared that by hand, but here I will use the router table.  (Chopping and paring by hand is actually not that difficult and goes fairly fast.)  I have a narrow cutter so I need to make a couple passes to get the desired width (about 5/16"). 

Note that, given the shape of the arm, I was not able to cut all the way to my line.  I still had to chop/pare that part by hand.

Good time to take a break!