3rd Annual June Chair Build - IV - The Seat Blank

I now have one seat blank that is pretty much ready. The main problem I see is my battens might be a bit too narrow for what I intended, but that wood is what I had to work with. I think I have an idea that will solve the problem.

One seat blank done.

I know, it doesn't look like much, yet. I've joined the two boards together with a slight gap between them. Hopefully this will mitigate any thought this chair will have for splitting after I install the legs. There should still be some room for wood movement this way.

Jeff gave me a comment on an Instagram photo I posted that he would like to see how I do the sliding dovetail with the toolset that I have. I have done a few sliding dovetails before, and I think I would probably do them the same even if I had more tools, except that a router plane sure would make this easier.

I don't have photos of how I made the battens. I made them with a 10 degree slope on each side. This is pretty easy to be accurate on. If you can plane a square edge on a board, you can also plane any angle on the edge you want. It is the same process.


Since I don't have one, I make do with a chisel instead. Here's a visual tutorial:

First mark where the batten will go.

I then clamp the batten upside down as a saw guide.

The batten holds the saw at the perfect angle.

I removed the handle from my Ryoba as it is in the way, but I think you could do this with about any saw. I once did it with a crosscut panel saw.

Here's a short video of how this works:

Sneak up on the line, then repeat for the other side of the batten.

One note here: I'm not doing tapered battens here. If I were, I could just cut to the lines I marked, then push the batten in a bit farther to tighten it up. With straight battens like these, I had to come it a bit on my second cut, or the dovetail would be sloppy and loose, as I measured from the widest part of the batten. I'm not sure of a good way to measure this, but a little guesstimation got me there in the end.

Here I'm starting to chop out the waste. I want a nice crisp edge, so I start by chopping out half the waste, then half of that until I can't go halfsies anymore.

Half of the waste...

until I get to the line. Then clean it up a bit and come in from the other side of the board.

With the edges done, I go bevel down to remove most of the waste.

I'm not too worried about how it looks yet, just don't get too aggressive.

If I had a router plane, I would pretty much start using it at this point. I might have used it to take the last couple of shavings at the edges of the board, but I also might not have. It depends on my mood.

Also, it is important to take a moment here and sharpen the chisel and/or router plane. A new edge will make this easier and more accurate.

Now I start taking down the high spots until it starts to look nice.

It is starting to look nice, but I need to check that the depth is enough not to get in the way of the batten.

I check that with both my marking gauge,

and some kind of straight edge. You can see here I have a ways to go still.

That's better.

Done! Does it fit?

Yes! First try.

I have to say I enjoy doing these with only a chisel and a saw, but with these two chairs there are a total of eight of these excavations that need to be done. A router would come in handy. But even if I had money burning a hole in my pocket to buy a new one, I still could probably get these all knocked out this way before the mailman would show up with a new tool.

Speaking of new tools, I need to get a brace or a new drill to drill the holes for the legs in the next post. The cheap Chinese corded one I have does not have enough torque to drive my 3/4" bit through pine. Unbelievable!