Greene & Greene Blacker House Office Chair - Part I

Ok - first thing first.  All this time I've misspelled "Greene & Greene" as "Green & Green".  Funny how all along I've read "Greene" but then turned around and spelled it as "Green" - my brain simply filtered out the trailing "e".  This makes me wonder what else my brain has been filtering out lately!

Here I am transferring the final settings of the chair fitting rig to cardboard.  I determined the ideal height of the chair, depth, as well as the splat curvature.  Because there will be inlay the splat needs to be of necessary thickness and rigidity.  This rules out thinner laminated strips for the splat.  Consequently, the goal is to restrain the curvature so that I can use 8/4 lumber.

Notice how the bottom of the splat curves inward to help define the lumbar area above.  This means an angled tenon at the bottom.

Next step is drafting.  I have a large drafting table (about 40" x 74").  I draft a plan (top) view, front view and side view on a single sheet.  This is an important step as I try to answer as many questions as I can.

Here is the front view.  Note the familiar Blacker House splat design:

Here is the side view:

Here is the plan (top) view:

Next I create my templates directly off of the draft.  I trace the curves using plain ole carbon paper onto the plywood.  I used 1/8" plywood for most of the templates.  For those templates that I will use on a router table or shaper, I use 1/4" plywood which I will later transfer to 1/2".

Most of the lumber comes from a single piece of 8/4 bubinga except for the front and side rails.  I purchased a separate piece of 4/4 bubinga for those.  This 8/4 brute is heavy.  I cut it down to rough mill size.

Fine wood is like fine wine.  It needs to breathe!