Dining Chairs

[Jesse Cloud]

Finally finished a set of six dining chairs for the house.  The chairs are mostly solid walnut, with tapered bent laminations of walnut for the rear legs, and bent lams of maple for the back splat.  The uphostery is leather.  The finish is a series of dyes and shellac sealer to even out the contrast between the heartwood and sapwood in the walnut, and to add a bit of brown and red to the color.  Topcoat is Behlen's Rockhard Varnish.  I normally wouldn't use that topcoat, but the wife wanted the exact same finish on the chairs as on the table.

Already started on the next sets.  First a sort of cafe/bistro design, then something vaguely maloofian.  Hope these go more quickly. :

Thanks for looking.
Jess[attachimg=#1]
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[ScotF]

Wow, Jesse...very nice chairs!  Did you do the upholstery yourself?  Any construction pics?  Was this a plan of your own design?  These look really nice.  Thanks for sharing!

Scot

 

[Ken Nagrod]

Gorgeous Jess!  I'll be needing a set for testing purposes.  How fast can ya make em and how long can I test em for?  [big grin]

 

[lumbajac]

Very nice Jesse.  Did you use dominos in the construction?

Corey

 

[mouppe]

Excellent job,
Richard.

 

[peter halle]

Jesse,

You are skilled dude.  [thumbs up] [thumbs up] [thumbs up] [thumbs up] After hearing a tiny bit about you making chairs at the class, it is fabulous to see these.  I will be contacting you regarding something else I am working on for the FOG.

Peter

 

[Wonderwino]

Beautiful job, Jesse!  I like your choice of wood.

 

[DavidCBaker]

Jesse, your work is always inspiring to me. I need to venture into the "lamination" side of woodworking, and this is a strong incentive.

 

[tbellemare]

Nice job, Jesse!

I really like the opposing/complementary wood and shape. It fuses things of my family heritage and my adult fondness of modern European style.

Tom

 

[RONWEN]

Very, very nice!

 

[woodguy7]

+1.  Love those back splats

Woodguy

 

[Jesse Cloud]

Thanks for all the kind words guys.

@David - Yeah, lamination opens up a lot of doors.  The problem with curved stuff like the back legs is finding wood where the grain runs in about the same direction.  Otherwise it looks crappy and may be fragile, e.g., short grain on the bottom of a leg.
If you have access to a Fine Woodworking archive, Michael Fortune wrote an article a couple of years ago with the best tutorial I know of.  Here's a pic of a back leg glue-up.
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[Jesse Cloud]

Very nice Jesse.  Did you use dominos in the construction?

Corey

Thanks Corey.  I used dominoes to connect the crest rail to the rear legs.  I want to experiment more with using dominoes for the structural joinery in future chairs.

Jess

 

[Sparktrician]

Those chairs are beautiful, Jesse.  Well done!!! 

[smile]

 

[btracey1]

These chairs look great! Are you taking....or...giving that chair building course?
See ya later,
Brian [thumbs up]

 

[Jesse Cloud]

Jesse,
Elegant design and wonderfully executed!  What type of glue do use for your laminations?  I've used yellow, Gorilla glue, and urea formaldehyde.  I've had good results with all of them, but my favorite is the urea glue due to its extended open time.

Joe

Thanks Rutabagared.  I used Titebond 3 on this project.  I like the long open time from urea formaldehyde, but not the toxicity, might try it again if I have a real complex lam.