Design and Prototype - Lesson Eight

I was beginning to panic at the beginning of this week, as I wasn't sure how I would ever get the chair finished in time. The first thing for me was to clean up the frame ready to start making the mortices for the slates.

I first used a sander which you manually apply pressure to the belt to clean up one side of each piece of chair frame:

Above: Cleaning one side up

After this I cleaned the other side using the wide belt sander to make sure everything was square. This then meant I could cut the mortice and tenon joints for the slats. To cut the tenons I used the tenoning machine, and the rounded of the edges. This is because to create the mortices I used a jig and a router. The jig was made to allow me to make accurate and exactly the same sized holes all along the frame of my chair:

Above: Jig to make holes

Above: Rounded mortice hole

Above: Frame with mortice holes cut

I was excited at this point, as it meant I could dry assemble the slates and frame to have a "seat shaped" object, as I liked to call it:

Above: Dry assembled frame and slates

 And what was even more amazing was that it it could take my weight easily, which I really never thought would happen.

Above: Me and my chair ;)

I then decided, for added stability now that I knew it was going to take my weight, I decided to make some stretchers from left over plywood. These were easy to make, and used a mortice and tenon joint on one end (with the same jig from before) and a dowel joint at the other:

Above: Using the same jig to create the mortices

Above: Opening leg to place stretcher

Above: Stretcher gluing in place

Once dry, I used the wide belt sander just to smooth the edges again. I then glued up one side, ready to start weaving and gluing the pieces into place:

Above: One side gluing in place

Once this was glued and dried, I could then begin to assemble the chair, this took along time, and I even went in today to carry on, as each strip had to be individually glued:

Above: Woven and straight pieces being glued into place

I was dieing to see what it looked like, so at the end of today I roughly cut all the strips down by hand, dry fitted the other side, and below is the result:

Above: Chair nearly finished 

This just leaves Monday (the deadline to finish everything of, and to submit. I should get this done, but probably without a finish applied.