American Period Furniture 2007  Online Extras

The Chairmaker Part III

Finally, the chairmaker makes the seat of the chair that is fastened to the underframe, this requiring him to use the utmost care. Its four rails, of which it (the seat) consists, p. 196, are curved along both outer edges matching the rails of the underframe. When these are curved, they are made straight without a curve to start with. The chairmaker cuts them out of planed stock, marks in the beginning its tenon and mortise, cutting the first and chiseling the later, and determines with that the lengths of the rails. Since the seat is broader at the front than at the back, he has to mark (lay out) the tenon (shoulder) with a bevel gauge, fig. XVI, which is indispensable. Both side rails, l & n and d & m, are mortised into the front rail of the seat, and the back rail, d & l, into the side rails. As soon as these rails are planed and mortised together, they are let into the back legs. The chairmaker cuts at the edges, d & l, of both side rails according to the thickness of the back legs, e & f and g & h, and is now able to lay the seat in this manner on the underframe so that the rear rail, d & l, comes to lay between the back legs. The assembled seat rails are therefore laid in their position on the underframe; he marks the curve of the underframe on the frame of the seat; takes the rails apart again and curves them out with the turning saw. He must follow up on the curves with the drawknife because the saw occasionally leaves rough edges, and he must finally smooth the curve with the rasp and so forth, p. 200. Now, since there is nothing left to hinder him, the rails of the seat are glued together with the help of a bar clamp. And as soon as this is done, he measures off the holes through which the cane is to be fastened with a pair of dividers. For coarse caning the holes are ½ inch apart; for a finer (cane) they are not as far apart. The laid out holes are drilled through with a hand drill, fig. XII. For the sake of greater accuracy, he smooths the upper side of the seat with the smoothing plane, and he pushes a toothing plane, p. 184, over the underside and thereby makes it rough so that the seat can be securely glued to the underframe.