Hole Digging

This post has nothing to do with digging, holes, dirt or any of that. It's more of a phrase that sums up my relationship with my project list. I finally started working on a pair of Welsh stick chairs, a form I've always wanted to build.

Half of my morning was spent going through several different photos of seat shapes and drafting out one that looked good. The sight lines are my best guess so far based on examples I've seen. I still have to come up with the final angles along those lines though. The blank is a glue up from 8/4 poplar. The board I bought was a bit too narrow, I wound up having to glue a 2x2 turning blank and a piece of 4/4 to get the seat depth needed. This may wind up looking like dog meat, but it should do well as practice.

A shot of the seat with all the sight lines. I'm sorely tempted to buy the LV tapered reamer, though I'll have to build a tapered tenon cutter as the small diameter for the leg joint will be 7/8".


One shovelful of dirt did make it's way into the hole though. Yesterday, amid other work I managed a few more coats of shellac and the fitting of the leaf supports. I'm so happy with this project, it came out great. If you don't recall, this was a project I started in November at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.