First day of the project...time to go pick out some wood! Because I don't have any lumber saved up at the moment (bums), I had to trek out to Watsonville to pick up some white oak at my local hardwood store. It would be ideal if I already had lots of boards, but I don't...one huge bonus to this trip though is the stop at De La Colmena, the best burrito place in the wold...and cheap too! I recommend the carnitas super burrito with a Mexican Coke. I think the sun does too.
But anyways, that's kind of besides the point. The point is the wood. Here it is outside my shop...This will make one chair (yeah...only one), with a little extra for a side project that I will get to later. Before I mill this board up though, I need to figure out where my pieces are going to come from. Lots of pencil and chalk lines poorly erased make it a little confusing.
The reason why it's important to figure out the layout of the pieces now is because of the grain. When I was looking through the wood selection at Jackal, I had my back leg template with me. Given that my back legs curve rather drastically, I was looking for a board with grain that naturally matched that curve. This is not for the sake of structural integrity...it just looks nicer. Most of the time though, it's not a perfect match, which means it becomes a game of as good as you can get it. This section of the board worked best. Pencil the template onto the wood then bandsaw.
