Chairlets

Part of my growing collection of budding chair bits. The four parts on the right with the little plywood template will be a kind of bendy back brace between the seat and the rail around behind the back of the sitter. I have cut the tenons on the template, but will only cut the bottom one on the workpiece initially, then I will cut the corresponding mortice on the seat and lay the back rest on top to check the position of the tenon. I can then cut that and mark the mortice in the rail from it. Sounds overly complex I am sure, but when working with irregular parts you cannot just cut everything to one size and expect it to fit. I can use the tenon machine to cut all the joints as long as I have a rectangle to stick in the clamp jaws, so I have left a nub of material at the end of the cut curves as on the template to give me my pretend rectangle. The parts with the spray can on are more back braces in the making, which will require their own methodology.

Incidentally the pulley transplant I did on the bandsaw in the autumn is really paying off. I put a much larger pulley on the saw and that has given me a far slower and more powerful bottom gear. This means I cut slower, but the blade can keep doing its work and never gets bogged down.
If you have a bandsaw I would recommend looking into a gearing device of some sort and a bigger pulley. I heartily recommend the Lenox Tri-master varied pitch 3/8 inch blade as well. It does need pampering (detensioning the blade when not in use) on my 14 inch saw as it is quite a thick blade and is designed for a bigger wheeled saw, but it is worth the money for me. I only put the link to indicate one possible source and more details of the blade. Lenox shatter proof blades are also a revelation for reciprosaw use.