Shaping or Saddling a Chair Seat

[Philip1231]

Looking for best article/book/video on shaping or saddling a chair or stool seat. I'd like something that
goes into detail and explaines how to lay out the shape and excavate to the proper depth, etc. There must
be at least one "must read" article or book or "must view" video that provides tutorial. Thanks

[Souperchicken]

For a book, The Chairmakers Notebook by Peter Galbert.

Curtis Buchannon's videos on youtube would also be good, start here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8nJcB2oav4

[AgGEM]

For a book, The Chairmakers Notebook by Peter Galbert.

Curtis Buchannon's videos on youtube would also be good, start here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8nJcB2oav4

Agreed.
It takes a while to watch the Buchanan videos (a good thing) but they are priceless and Curtis is a natural teacher.
I have only made one seat but I found it easy AND fun to do.
Ag

[YSU65]

Having done one in walnut (Maloof rocking chair) and several in pine seats for Windsor chairs, here are my observations.  

I had several woodworking friends who have made 8-10 Windsor chairs with pine seats and the Maloof chair.  Pine is easy to carve and you can do a great job with hand tools - if you have them.  Like a scorp, travisher, and adz and spoke shaves.  Walnut is not pine - it is a lot harder.  Even with the above mentioned tools, they had trouble removing enough wood to make the rocking chair approach the Maloof design.  They got tired and quit carving.  I went with an angle grinder with a HF coarse wheel, sanding wheels, and a die grinder along with rasps and files and got a much better seat.    

This next comment will condemn me to eternal damnation here in the hand tool section, but power did a better job than hand tools at a lower cost and less effort.   

So if you are carving a seat out of soft material, hand tools will work fine.  If you go to a harder seat, consider power.  Nobody cares if you used hand tools, Festools, of foot tools, did you do a good job in the end.

I know that I have sinned, please pray for my salvation.

Next week I will be working on four chairs with carved cherry seats and backrests.  I have the coarse HF grinder, and a curved fine Holey Galahad wheel, and two new Dragon rasps to help with the work.

[FireWood]

Ditto the above.

I am slowly working on one of Scott Morrison's "tea party" chairs in cherry.  Sort of an entry-level Maloof stool.



Power grinders and sanders make short work of the heavy shaping.  I'll refine the shapes with the hand tools.  

[overland]

I'm pretty sure that's how Sam Maloof did it, too.

[Scoony]

Power tools works, and hand tools also work. Its not a cop-out to use power tools and its not an ego thing to use hand tools, more of what you have on hand, and what your trying to accomplish. I did use a power sander on some of my rocker seat, but most of it was done with hand tools so I could get the slope and shape I wanted. 

A sharp compass plane works much like a scrub plane and will remove material surprisingly quick. I have a adz and have tried to use it, but the compass plane seems to work better and faster at least for me.

As for books, I have several by different chair makers.
The Chairmaker's Notebook as already mentioned is the most detailed in my library.
Make a Windsor chair with Mike Dunbar is a good book and shows a few different styles.
Jim Rendi had a good book that I used to make my first Windsor chair. Not as detailed, and he only covers one style, but is a good follow along book.

[Philip1231]

Thanks for all the great comments. I have already taken the plunge with an investment in a Barr scorp and Lee Valley Pullshave so I'd
like to give it a go sans power tools for the first try. I have my Husqvarna chainsaw at the ready should the hand tool route fail.
I will post pictures: hopefully in the not too distant future.

[Souperchicken]

I've done a Windsor seat in poplar, one in white pine, and most recently one in walnut.  Obviously the walnut is harder, but if you start with an adze it's really not too bad to use only hand tools.  I'm slow but still it only took maybe an hour or so to do 95% of the shaping, the last 5% of fussing was another hour or more but not sure if the walnut slowed that part down too much.  If you aren't going to splurge on an adze, if you have a big fat carving gouge and mallet I think that would be the next best thing.  That's what Peter Galbert demonstrated in Fine Woodworking for the article he did on a Windsor rocker, and he used butternut for that seat.  I think that's about as hard as walnut.  I'm working on a walnut version of Galbert's FWW rocker:

I used a bandsaw to cut out the blank, then followed that with an adze:


Next was the inshave:




After that I used a travisher and scrapers/sanding block, and drawknife/spokeshaves for the outer shaping. This is what it looks like now:

[YSU65]

Butternut is way softer than walnut IMHO.  When we did the Maloof rocking chair, my two friends are older and did not have the energy to keep working on the walnut chairs.  Windsor chairs are easier to carve.  And Windsors chairs - if made correctly - are way better than 95% of the stuff on the market today.