Side Assemblies

After last week's front leg assembly of Vidar's Chair came out of the clamps, I proceeded to fine tune the fit of the side rails and stretchers. After getting a close fit, I then traced the templates onto these parts.

Then, off to the band saw, followed by spokeshaving of the curves and softening of the edges. The side seat rails also received a bevel on the topside and filed notches on the outside edges to keep the seat wrap from slipping; all this, very similar to the previous front seat rail and stretcher.

Once the side parts were shaped and all their surfaces were prepared, I then focused on optimizing the fit of the joinery. With eight joints in the works, it took many, many rounds of dry-fit assembly and disassembly, adjustments to the joints with a block plane, then again and again, until the fit was ready.

I then cleaned up the surfaces and prepared them for assembly.

The last thing to prepare for the glue-up operation was masking of the joinery and the application of wax around the dry-fit joints to make handling of potential glue squeeze-out a breeze.

I assembled the sides in three glue-ups. First, two rear joints on the left side, second, two rear joints on the right side, and lastly, four joints at the front.

Crest rail and back splats come next.

Hej då!

Craig