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Thread: CNC Bar Stools

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
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    Piedmont, SD
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    728

    Default CNC Bar Stools

    I've been making small batches of these for a local upholstery shop, Stone's Dakota Bison Furniture, who specializes in buffalo hide furnishings. They regularly have clients requesting bar stools, so my goal was to provide an economical, heirloom build chair frame. (tall order)
    The 3D buffalo cameo and genuine buffalo hide make them an appealing addition to their line of furnishings.

    Finished chair back.jpgfinished chair side.jpg


    Most of the bulk processing is done on the CNC, including as much of the domino mortises as possible. Recently had an order come in for 12, so thought some of you may find it interesting to see some of the processes involved.

    Slabs on the 'Bot
    Milled slabs.jpg

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
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    Piedmont, SD
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    A day or two later, stretchers and small parts are milled and complete, as well as manual domino mortise machining. Note the long tenons extending from top of back legs in the foreground. These act as a spine and alignment guide as the 3 pieces that make up the backrest are stacked and glued during stage 1 assembly:

    Joinery and completed connectors.jpg

    Followed by first stage of glue-ups. You can see the rough cut stack of backrest assembly at the left:

    Sub assemblies.jpg

    Then on to the edge sander to tame those backrests. Lots of other processes not shown, such as rounding over all edges as much as possible with trim router, plenty of handwork to blend all the nooks and crannies. Break a real sweat shaping concave face with 150 belt glued to a piece of polycarb that flexes to fit, leveling unevenness that is inevitable from drum end of edge sander:

    Backrest Stack being sanded.jpg

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    Hobby-Tronics, Chiloquin Oregon
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    A while back I tried to make my wife a rocker. So then I went another direction for her birthday! Thanks for sharing your process's. Very informative. Russ
    AKA: Da Train Guy

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Piedmont, SD
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    Back leg assemblies after full course of sanding and fairing

    Back Leg assemblies cleaned and dressed.jpg

    Another view showing logo, burned into inside of back seat stretcher. I have nicer engraved plates I use on cabinet drawers, but this is just quicker and not at risk of coming off.

    Burned Logo.jpg

    Onto second glue up routine. All domino joints assembled using plastic resin glue. Epoxy is only other adhesive worthy of chairs, but not as easy to clean up, dry or cured. Every other glue type fails sooner than later - its a chair thing. Corner brace blocks are pocketed for ease of fastening slip-seat to chair.

    Corner brace block.jpg

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Piedmont, SD
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    Back to the ShopBot:

    3D carving backrest on ShopBot.jpg

    Ready for a light sanding of carving, inspection/cleanup of inevitable dings and glue spots prior to heading to finish room.

    Freshly carved ready for finishing prep.jpg

    Will catch up with finishing processes in next couple days.

    jeff

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Kennebunkport, Maine
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    Excellent Jeff!!!
    That's a Lot of work Well done!
    Thanks for showing the whole process(minus the sweaty hand work
    scott
    scott P.
    2013 Desktop/spindle/VCP 11.5**
    Maine

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Lenox High School, Lenox MA
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    Nice looking, well made chairs. Are they made of Poplar? What color id the stain?

    Phil

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
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    Piedmont, SD
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    Phil - Poplar indeed. Not my first choice, but still qualifies as a hardwood, is lightweight and economical. Poplar also is pretty friendly for staining.
    As for color, I call it walnut. That process also is done with a swifter, production style of finish, which goes like this:

    1 Spray on moderate coat of Dark Mission Brown trans-tint dye stain = almost immediate dry time, zero oils to interfere with topcoat adhesion
    2 Spray on moderate coat of thinned CAB acrylic lacquer, dyed with walnut color trans-tint. Again, dry in no time
    3 Spray on blend of Mohawk knock-down glaze to darken pores, making a more convincing walnut look. Rub back lightly with white nylon pads
    4 Spray on 2 coats clear CAB acrylic

    Looks like quite a list, but all processes are pretty swift, no waiting between coats. I'll provide images of process in the next day or two.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Jasper, TX
    Posts
    536

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    Nice chair. Thanks for showing the process. Looks like you used screws for hold down, but the picture was too small for me to be sure.
    Is there a way on this forum for me to enlarge the picture myself?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
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    Piedmont, SD
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    Not sure how you can enlarge - I scaled them down from about 1MB to 300k before posting. However, appears forum automatically compresses them when uploading, as they show much smaller file size after upload.
    Anyhow - just used 2 screws to fasten 1.25" block with toggle clamp to bed. Made a small yoke to apply downward pressure so backrest was firmly seated on table. Two grip clamps below help stabilize and control slippage. Not much torque here, as all cutting is done with 1/8" ball nose, so a death grip is not essential.

    jeff

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