CNC Bar Stools

[jTr]

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

[jTr]

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

[chiloquinruss]

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

[jTr]

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

[jTr]

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

[scottp55]

Excellent Jeff!!!
That's a Lot of work Well done!
Thanks for showing the whole process(minus the sweaty hand work
scott

[phil_o]

Nice looking, well made chairs. Are they made of Poplar? What color id the stain?

Phil