Greene & Greene Blacker House Office Chair - Part VI

My wife and I are at our small booth at the 34th Annual Siskiyou Woodcraft Guild Thanksgiving Show here in Ashland Oregon.  The show was this past weekend (Nov 29, 30 and Dec.1).  Awesome show.  There is a LOT of talent in the guild that spans high end cabinetry to world class carving, inlay, bowl turning, and furniture making.  I've been in a number of shows on the west coast and east coast and I like this show the best.  Besides the small venue and easy going atmosphere we also have live music going throughout the show - from cool jazz to classical to celtic and so on performed by local musicians.  Music really makes a difference!  Its a totally relaxing and enjoyable atmosphere.  Hope to see you next year!  (The weekend after Thanksgiving).

I've got two projects I'm now working on.  A small table as well as finishing this office chair.  Back to the chair!  I'll go ahead and get the crest rail prepared for joinery and partially shaped.  To make things easier I'll hog off some wood. Below is the 8/4 lumber I will be using.  Note that for the Blacker House arm chair reproduction I used 12/4 lumber.  Below you can see the side profile template which represents the view at the mid section of the back of the crest rail:

Given that the back of the chair leans back I want the top of the crest rail to be somewhat parallel to the floor - so I figure that angle out and draw the shape on the end of the crest rail and then I cut off much of the top waste.

There is still a lot of material to remove but removing the top waste makes the piece noticeably lighter.  Next I lay out my rail locations on the bottom of the crest rail and then take it to the multi-router to hog off some material using a large 3/4" mortising bit - good for cutting a flat surface.  The crest rail has a 1/2 inch drop on both sides about 3/4" from the rear posts.

At this point I go back and mark out the mortise locations for the rear posts and then I cut the mortises on the multi-router (1/4" thick mortises):

Awesome fit!

Now I mark out all the splat mortise locations using my template as a guide.  Then back to the multi-router.  All the mortises are 1/4" thick.

I then square up all the mortise ends with a chisel.

Now its time for the splats.  I'll discuss this with a separate blog post as this will be somewhat involved.