Making Chair Progress

This weekend I made great progress on my dining room chairs. I got a new tool to help make things easier...a benchtop bandsaw. After looking around for a few months and realizing there aren’t many options unless you want to spend $2000, I settled on this Rockwell one. It feels more durable and solid that any of the others in this price range.

Using the new bandsaw, I cut all the curved pieces for the top back, between the 2 back rails. These pieces are curved on both sides and are just over an inch wide.

Then I built a jig to help with the assembly of the front legs. It is just wood clamped to create a square corner, but it allowed me to quickly line up the pieces and have something solid to drill against.

I then assembled all 8 sets of legs, with a leg on each end and a straight piece between. These I had pre-cut and drilled for pocket holes. 

Since it was fairly nice out, ie not raining or snowing, I also got all the assembled legs sanded and they are ready for stain.

Finally I finished cutting out all the back rails...or finished as many as I could. I need to go buy more wood. Currently I have 9 out of 16 done.

And now we know: cutting with a bandsaw is different than any other saw I’ve used, most similar to a jigsaw. With a regular saw the blade is hard and you can push against is with the wood. With the bandsaw the blade flexes so too much pressure will cause it to cut wrong, you have to gently and slowly work the wood.