Making chair slats

A simple approach to bending parts

At one point, I split and shaved all the slat parts. I did it for a few reasons; to be true to the rest of the chair build (all hand tools) and to keep water out of the machines. Both are good reasons to size the slats with a froe and a drawknife.

The crux, as I found it, was that I want consistent bends on all the slats. My method, both in shaving them and the type of bending form, yielded inconsistent results. Sometimes I had uniform slats. Other times I’d end up with 5 or 7 or 10 unique bends. That frustrated me, especially when standing behind a finished chair and sighting down the back slats. That view provides an unforgiving look at the consistency of the bend.

An uncompromising vantage point. I once visited another chairmakers shop and looked at one of his chairs from this spot…he cursed at me and chased me away.