Back Assembly

This week, work on the Upprätt 2 armchair began with fitting the back seat rail and back stretcher tenons into the back leg mortises. I then prepared the inside face of the back seat rail for the seat wrap nails. I laid out the nail locations now so that I could more easily pre-drill holes using the drill press, rather than waiting until the chair is completely assembled and a bit cumbersome to navigate.

Both parts were then taken to the band saw and the curves were cut. First, the inside and outside faces... then the top and bottom faces.

On this version of the Upprätt chair, I'll be making most of the part profiles a bit smaller. In the case of the seat rails, I'm also adding a curve to the outside face. First, I hand-plane a chamfer defining the lower end of the curve. Then, a chamfer down the center of the face.

From there, I continued subdividing the facets, by eye, using the hand plane. The result is a gentle curve.

Next, all the sharp edges are made soft and friendly using a block plane and spokeshave.

The seat rail needs a few notches filed into the outer edges to keep the seat wrap cord from sliding along the curve and losing its tension.

Below, you can see the spokeshave forming the initial chamfer on one of the back stretcher edges.

To further reduce the visual weight compared to the first Upprätt chair, I've incorporated bevels into the rectangular profiles of the legs... first, laid out in pencil.

Hand planing and spokeshaving reveal the new profiles. I'm adding this bevel to the front and back surfaces of all four legs.

At last, we come to our first glue-up. To play it safe, as usual, I've done the back assembly in two stages. First the left leg joinery; then the right, an hour, or so, later. This will stay clamped until tomorrow morning.

Next week, the side seat rails will be prepared, leading into work on the front leg assembly.

Hej då!

Craig