Ok, with the back of the chair glued up, I now get to move forward, literally and figuratively, with the side rails. Not to say that back construction is easy, but this move into depth complicates the process. Well designed and well made chairs are wider and taller in the front than in the back...thank you very much ergonomics...and it's the side rails that give you that. They go up and out from the back joint, which means a compound angle cut, which means math.
But...I didn't get into woodworking to do math, so I eschewed computations and instead made two little baby ramps, one for each angle, to send the side rails up and out in a properly ergonomic fashion.
The wedge against the fence splays the rail outwards and the very slight, hard to see any rise wedge sitting flat is for the height adjustment from back to front.
One side for each rail is cut at the right compound angle. Once done, it's ready for a mortise through the end grain. Conveniently, I get to use these same ramps to make the properly angled slot on the boring machine. It's a lovely machine, but you hand feed the wood into the spinning router bit. The jig I made here is to keep the piece as stable as possible when cutting.
When finished, I have two mortises that line up with one another...hopefully perfectly! I dimension a third piece of wood, technically called a floating tenon, that fits snugly into both. I will eventually glue it in place, holding the joint together.
Fortunately, everything went together okay and to celebrate a difficult job well done, I ate these...thank you Ferrell's. Though...let's be real, if it failed, I still would have eaten the donuts, a sulking snack.
