Dry fitting components is always for me an exciting point on the way to completing a chair. I can sit in it, and get the first indications to whether it might work as well as I hoped. These two have been particularly fun since one, which I’m calling Diner B, is mostly my own design, and I’ve been able to alter it further than the first one I made—hopefully making improvements. The other is my interpretation of Bern Chandley‘s lowbow diner. He’s easily one of my biggest heroes in chair making, and a huge inspiration for me. So this chair has been a ton of fun to build so far.
I’ve moved away from a more traditional spindle shape and opted for placing their bulge down at the bottom of the spindles. The idea is to have the bulge begin as soon as the spindle exits the seat, and then taper up to the crest rail as is typical. Certainly not a huge difference, but I like it so far. To my back, there’s no functional difference when sitting in it.
Leaf Slat Upgrade
The leaf slats I made for the lowback diner have a substantial design change from the last time I used them in my first Windsor chair. Originally, I got the idea from the back slats Hal Taylor uses on his rocking chairs. The space between his crest rail and seat being so much greater than that of a typical Windsor dining chair was the main reason I gave solid wood slats a go instead of the multiple lamination route he uses.
Just as with the spindles in the Diner-B above, these now begin to taper in width right from exiting the seat to about7/8″ at around 4″ up from the seat, and then slowly taper to their 8mm mortise in the bow. That was the idea, anyway. On this chair, I screwed up on the five slats in the center and tapered up far to quickly. I almost remade them, but in the end decided since it was the first go round, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Not to mention, these are a ton of work!
Sightlines for these slats are double that of typical spindles. In the center they start leaning 15 degrees forward and relax back with each as they move outward toward the posts. The second set is from the seat and bow mortises in a straight line as with typical spindles, which starts with the center slat virtually leaning back at 8 degrees. I ended up planing a bit of the seat top as all the lines got way to crowded to easily discern which one I was drilling. It was fun.
