I've built three of the Boggs chairs so far. I'm working on a dining room set. They are the most comfortable and beautiful I've found so far. Jeff's plans make it pretty much idiot proof.
It's allowed me to experiment with bending. I use lumber yard kiln dried cherry, walnut, and curly maple, and they've all bent just fine. Of course I chose the stock very carefully for straightness of grain. I've got all the legs bent for the rest of my set. I just need to get ahead on other work before I get back to it.
Thanks John. That's great to hear about the set. I've wondered how kiln dried materials bend using Jeff's methods. Do you ever get failure during bending process? Or has each part made it through?
I had one failure -- I forgot to tighten the bending strap, and the leg broke instantly. Other than that, I had two of the 16 I've bent that had a little grain lifting at the bend, but it spokeshaved right out.
I look closely at the grain while at the lumberyard, especially on the side of the 8/4 stock. And I find that the best choices (for cherry) are on wide boards 16 feet long. It seems like overkill. But when they mill a board like that, it's a good bet the tree was clear and straight as an arrow. The legs are great on the two outside edges, while the inside part, nearer where the pith was, is fine for spindles, usually. 8/4 shorts tend not to have especially straight grain.
I have a harder time finding usable quarter sawn boards for the back slats. They dont get much quartersawn anything in local yards, and the boards I see have a lot more defects.
Thanks, John. We're at a loss for quartersawn options here as well. I'm usually able to source decent straight grain for stick chairs...though I'm not attempting to bend the kiln dried stuff. Actually, I tried with some thicker white oak (for a chair I made over the winter). Even with the strap and form and stop, it failed almost immediately.
I’ve yet to sit in a post and rung chair as comfortable as Brian’s Berea chair ❤️
The attention to both comfort and craftmanship is impressive.
I've built three of the Boggs chairs so far. I'm working on a dining room set. They are the most comfortable and beautiful I've found so far. Jeff's plans make it pretty much idiot proof.
It's allowed me to experiment with bending. I use lumber yard kiln dried cherry, walnut, and curly maple, and they've all bent just fine. Of course I chose the stock very carefully for straightness of grain. I've got all the legs bent for the rest of my set. I just need to get ahead on other work before I get back to it.
Thanks John. That's great to hear about the set. I've wondered how kiln dried materials bend using Jeff's methods. Do you ever get failure during bending process? Or has each part made it through?
I had one failure -- I forgot to tighten the bending strap, and the leg broke instantly. Other than that, I had two of the 16 I've bent that had a little grain lifting at the bend, but it spokeshaved right out.
I look closely at the grain while at the lumberyard, especially on the side of the 8/4 stock. And I find that the best choices (for cherry) are on wide boards 16 feet long. It seems like overkill. But when they mill a board like that, it's a good bet the tree was clear and straight as an arrow. The legs are great on the two outside edges, while the inside part, nearer where the pith was, is fine for spindles, usually. 8/4 shorts tend not to have especially straight grain.
I have a harder time finding usable quarter sawn boards for the back slats. They dont get much quartersawn anything in local yards, and the boards I see have a lot more defects.
Thanks, John. We're at a loss for quartersawn options here as well. I'm usually able to source decent straight grain for stick chairs...though I'm not attempting to bend the kiln dried stuff. Actually, I tried with some thicker white oak (for a chair I made over the winter). Even with the strap and form and stop, it failed almost immediately.