Project report: Hepplewhite chair

(a picture of this chair appears at:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~kmuldrew/woodworking/hepchair.html
)

The Fool's Progress

A couple of years ago I bought the book, "Federal Furniture, by Mike
Dunbar. Mostly I was interested in reading about the style and the
craftsmanship that was employed in the Federal period, although I also
dreamed of building some of that stuff eventually. This past winter,
while thumbing through the book, I was overwhelmed by an urge to build
the Hepplewhite Chair described in the book. The chair is understated
in relation to most federal period dining chairs, which tend to be
quite ornate. This was good because my carving skills were (and still
are :-O) those of a complete beginner (a recent post from Mike Hide
about getting a decent book on carving was taken to heart; this winter
I'm going to learn a few strokes). What worried me the most about this
chair was the fact that every mortice and tenon joint involved an
angled (and even a compound angled) mortice. Nevertheless, I barged
ahead, expecting a few hard lessons from the school of experience (you
know, the one that gives the exam first and the lessons afterwards).

I started with the carved back splat, figuring that if I couldn't get
that to look reasonable then I would be spared the difficulties
farther along. I picked up a small piece of 6/4 Honduras mahogany (not
just because it's so easy to carve, this is the wood that the original
was make from as well) and cut out the rough shape on the bandsaw. I
was going to get a fret saw for the interior cuts but while walking
through Home Depot one day I came upon the low-end Delta scrollsaw for
$69. I bought it on the spot and finished all the cutting later that
day (now I know how people can get addicted to scroll sawing; it's
almost as much fun as a lathe).

I had some cheap carving chisels lying around, and despite knowing
that it was a fool's economy to use crap tools on expensive wood, I
was trapped by the economy of obligation. No money meant no tools, so
the choice was to make do or stop work. I spent a lot of time trying
to shape and sharpen the chisels and was able to get very good results
with the straight edge tools, mediocre results with the shallow gouge
and appalling results with the parting tool. There was just no way to
make any progress without a good parting tool so I dropped by Lee
Valley hoping to find something on the returns shelf (returned tools
that are still serviceable get re-sold on the cheap). It was a
longshot, but better than nothing. There actually were a couple of
carving tools on the discount shelf but no parting tool, but while
talking to one of the Lee Valley people about my problem, he suggested
a dirt-cheap set of plastic-handled carving chisels that they carried.
He had used them and was surprised by the quality so I put down my $15
and got the set. I finished the carving using these tools and I must
say that the limiting factor was my skill level, which sat a couple of
orders of magnitude below the quality of the tools. Also I had
difficulty figuring out what the carving was supposed to look like
from the small picture in the book. It looks like a few stalks of
wheat, or something like that, so I just carved a pattern that looked
vaguely similar. A better pattern would have helped since I couldn't
really get a decent mental picture of the relief. It's hard to remove
everything that doesn't look like elephant when you can't picture the
elephant.

The carving went pretty slowly as I often found myself too busy to get
much shop time, but by the time it was done I had enough money to get
a big slab of 8/4 mahogany for the rest of the chair. The back sides
have a double-fluted reeding on both edges with the center hollowed
out. My reeding tool has a flat face to use as a fence which wouldn't
have worked on the curved pieces so I built a new one with a curved
fence. Then I shaped a cutter for the double reeding and proceeded to
scratch that in. The scraping was pretty rough in places but removing
the center material was dead easy.

The joinery presented a huge challenge. Rather than make the custom
cradles described by Dunbar, I decided to go with angled tenons rather
than angled mortices on those joints with a curved back. On the joints
with a flat back I simply angled my drill press to get the correct
angle for the mortice. For the compound angled mortice I just closed
my eyes and freehanded a hole using a hand drill. Remarkably, it fit
perfectly. Glue-up went easily without any snags (pretty unusual for
my sort of work) and all that remained was final sanding, boiled
linseed oil, and a few coats of orange shellac. The slip-seat was made
of 1/2" baltic birch plywood with 3/8" closed cell foam on the bottom
(a piece of a blue camping foamy) and 1" open cell foam over top,
covered with black leather.

The chair is very comfortable to sit in and feels solid, despite its
light weight (probably about 8 or 9 lbs). Even if it had ended up on a
fire pit, it would have been worth the time and money just for the
experience, but I think I'll keep it just the same. Every time I look
at it I'm amazed that a duffer like me could actually build something
like that. Maybe when I get better at carving I might make a whole
set.


Ken Muldrew
[email protected]