Popular Woodworking – October 2019

POPULARWOODWORKING.COM ■ 31

20 21

20 Mill and mortise the thick lumbar

pieces before cutting their curves.

21 Use the lumbar slats to lay

out the corresponding mortises

in the curved rails. Wait until after

smoothing the curves to lay out the

front-to-back locations.

22 Saw and smooth the curved rails.

23 Clamp the curved rails to align

each mortise in the curved row.

The mortises go in square to the

workpiece.

22 23

the drill press. On the sides of the

back legs, where the back of the arms

land, I drill another dowel hole.

I now fi t the glued-up back

assembly into the back legs, make

a mark^1 / 4 " above the crest rail, and

cut off the tops of the legs. This is

also the time to fi nish shaping and

rounding the other chair parts. To

keep clamps from slipping as I glue

up the two sides of the chair, I make

clamping cauls with the same com-

pound angles as the joinery.

Once the side assemblies have

been clamped for at least an hour,

you can add the front seat rail and

the back assembly and connect the

two sides.

Add the Arms

After the main frame of the chair

is glued up, I work on the arms. I

with a block plane to add a little more
grace. After that, it only takes two bar
clamps to assemble the back.

Glue Up the Frame
This version of the chair has arms,
which run from the back legs to the
extra-tall front legs. So before fi nal
assembly, we need to cut some extra
joinery. Sometimes I mortise arms
to legs, but on chairs like this one,
which has wide seat rails giving the
frame all the strength it needs, I
don’t. I attach the arms front and
back with^3 /^8 " dowels.
To do this you fi rst need to cut
off the tops of the front legs at 9°, to
match the angle of the arms. Next I
center a dowel hole on the top of the
arm, using a drilling attachment on
the horizontal mortiser, with the leg
tilted to 9° (this can also be done on

make a template for the general

shape and trace it onto my stock.

Because the arms fl are outward to

match the sides of the seat, they

cross the back legs at an angle. So

I need to bevel the inside face of

the arms at 4° to meet the back legs