Gragg Chair Challenge Day 2 (a/k/a @16-hour mark)

The front seat rail is the easiest so I start there. This is around Hour 9-1/2.

I spent the entirety of hours 8-16 roughing and fitting the cross elements of the chair; the front and rear seat rails and the crest rail.  The front seat rail and crest rail are fairly straightforward as their “joinery” is simply shaped lap joints that need very little “fitting other than getting the dimensions correct and the joint faces aligned.  Admittedly each presents its own minor challenge, in the case of the front seat rail the lap joint is curved at the frond frame bend, while the crest rail requires shaping in two axes but I accomplished that easy enough with my mni bandsaw.  Sawing entirely by hand would have taken another 20 minutes or so.

The chair sometime around Hour 13.

Of this second eight-hour set I spent more than half of it making and fitting the rear seat sail, simultaneously the most important structural element of the chair and by far the most difficult to fabricate as its ends are beveled on two axes and the compound curve must be “just right” to fit the five single element back-slat-and-seat-bottom pieces.

@ Hour 16.

As the project proceeds I am growing cautiously optimistic that I can get a chair constructed in 40 hours.  Not finished by any means as the final shaping, sculpting, and painting takes another 40 – 60 hours at least, but fashioned and assembled.  If I can get to the 40-hour mark and have a completed chair sitting in front of my I will offer this as a six-day workshop next summer.  I’ve already had two people reserve spots should it occur, and since there would only be four students for this event it just might happen.  The cost would reflect the fact that I would have weeks of preparation for it, but I am enthused nevertheless.

PS – I was asked about my choice of  adhesive for this project, and yes I am using PVA purely for convenience.  When I build chairs for real I generally rely on hot animal hide glue.  Cold hide glue just takes too long to set up for me to proceed at the pace I need for this exercise.  In fact, given the temps in the barn attic at this time of year, hot hide glue would present a bit of the same problem since it is so hot up there as you might expect from the heat radiating down from the almost 3000 s.f. of asphalt panel roofing on a bright sunny day.

PPS –  The time lapse video is working wonderfully thus far, and my projection of the completed video at a bit more than one hour’s total length seems to be about right.  I have to set aside some time to learn how to post to youtube.