The next step was for Ian to made the drive to his client's house to review the design with his client and get her approval. I and one other maker gave the client bids on fabricating 16 of the chairs in Maple. The time frame from model to approval of the bid took up the summer and the better part of the fall. Just prior to Thanksgiving the price was approved and we received the go ahead.
The first part of the process was to find a good supply of quarter sawn Maple. I dealt with Peter at Horizon Wood Products in Northern Pennsylvania and one other supplier here in Connecticut in sourcing the material. Peter had a large quantity of nice hard Quarter Sawn Hard Maple for a good price and the proper thickness. The material arrived in my shop in mid December, it was a large stack of material. Seeing it next to the model and on the fork lift was a little intimidating when you look at the stack and realize that you have to mill it all down to little parts and then put the little parts together to make the chair.
Chair Model in Front of rough Maple for Finished Chairs |
After creating the bill of materials or parts list the next step in the process was to make up the seat blanks. In order to bend the seats I needed two bending forms, I was happy to have the CNC router in the shop as it made short work of cutting the curved form parts. Prior to having the CNC router I would have had to make up a master blank with the seat curvature and then make copies from that blank using a hand held router and a rub collar. For 10 days I started things out by gluing up 2 seat blanks in this press. I am cutting parts for 20 chairs, making 18 and delivering the 16 best.
Clamping up Seat Blanks |