So it's time. After nearly a month of talking about the chair seat, I'm ready to make it. In past posts, I've included a few keywords about the seat: floating, framed, thin, plywood, felt (?), etc. Now, you will actually be able to see, in portion, what all those words mean to me. First, I'll start with plywood...which is easy, because we all know what plywood is. That said, I am making my own plywood...and that handmade process is probably a little unfamiliar (presumptuous, I apologize), so here it is step by step:
1. Cutting veneers on the bandsaw
2. Sanding the rough side (bandsawn side) flat
3. Gluing individual veneers together with wedge pressure
4. Five sheets of single thickness veneer are stacked and glued together
5. A LOT of clamping
Now that I have my multi-ply oak board, I'm ready to fit it to the chair. For that, I make a template out of scrap masonite that matches the chair frame and then pencil the template shape onto the oak.
Bandsawing then hand planing brings it down to the right dimension and the seat is in there!
While not overt yet, you can begin to see what I mean by a 'floating' seat in this picture...that is, not touching the chair frame. When it's all glued up (this coming week), I'll finalize that detail. Getting close to done!