Turning chaise longue legs.

[Retired]

Hi,

Whilst visiting our friends Steve and Julie on Sunday Julie asked if I could possibly turn four wooden chaise longue legs for her. Julie is into crafts and upholstery and likes to make furniture. Of course I would be happy to help out so today I was surgically removed from the computer and went into the black hole (garage).

Julie was vague about the dimensions but said she would like traditional style legs rather than modern and it didn’t matter what timber I used.

I had a look round my stock and pulled out a 34” length of 2.75” square seasoned oak which I’ve had for over ten years. A few inches longer would have been better but I cut four 8.375” blanks from it and marked each of the ends for centre. I pricked a hole on centre; then as I don’t have the luxury of a live tailstock centre I used a screwdriver to add a bit of paste wax which I find is a brilliant lubricant once the blank is mounted on the ring centre. The four prong drive was located with a hammer then the blank mounted between centers.

I had moved the compressor and other items away from beneath the lathe and pulled the Startrite combination machine near to use as a bench for the woodturning kit. The weather is dire as usual and two feet away from my elbow the wind and torrential rain were doing their best to push the garage doors in. I really need to learn how to work in a black hole as I’m sure it would be useful. The workshop strip lights are in the wrong place for the lathe so I rigged up a temporary 60W lamp casting very nice shadows over the work.

I had made a rough dimensioned sketch of the leg design so transferred the dimensions onto a “story stick”. I always do this when faced with repetition work as I only need to measure once eliminating making silly mistakes; at least it usually does assuming I can see what I’m doing.

With the tool rest adjusted and everything checked for security also ensuring the blank turned without fouling I was soon sending the shavings flying using a heavy spindle gouge. Once the blank had been reduced to a cylinder dimensions lines were added using the story stick to mark from; just a touch with the pencil then with the lathe in motion the mark was extended around the cylinder and work progressed nicely. Whilst turning this first leg I made up the various diameters as I went along working on what looked right.

It was very difficult given that I was working in shadows to watch the cut as the tool was applied; the corners are a blur at speed and catch novices out but I wanted to complete these legs today as the forecast is for colder weather so I battled on. I roughed down with the gouge but used the skew chisel for the finishing cuts on the flat sections which give a shear cut saving a lot of sanding. Calipers were used to transfer the various diameters from the first leg. After sanding to 240 grit I used a short length of dowel to burnish the surface then added the wire burnt rings.

Had it been a nice day I would have enjoyed doing this job without having to rush. The legs are not perfect and certainly not up to the galley standard which my chum David (Yorkie) produces but given the conditions I was working in I’m sure Julie will be delighted to receive them with my compliments.

Kind regards, Col.

[AlanBeckett]

They'll do for the Pit young Col
I can just see you lounging on a Chaise Longue dressed in a toga and nibbling on a bunch of grapes. The mind boggles.
How about a thick curtain behind the garage door to keep some of the wind out? Even if it isn't entirely successful it would probably feel more cosy, like my wall.
Alan

[Yorkie]

They look good to me Colin!

Oak isn't the easiest of timbers to turn or finish as it has such open grain. The higher the speed of the lathe, the better it turns as the wood tends to come off in chips rather than shavings. There's a saying in woodturning that you should 'sand the shape of the wood - not sand the wood to shape' but it's very difficult to get a good finish on oak 'off the tool' so I invariably resort to the latter technique!

It's also very difficult to make items which are absolutely identical - far easier to make them look 'similar' and to my eye Colin, those four close up together look fine, and when on a chaise longue they'll be spaced well away from each other anyway, so any slight differences won't be noticed. We're our own worse critics, but I'm sure that Julie will be delighted! The detail of the beads and coves looks sharp and the 'pommels' are nicely shaped.

They get my vote Colin!!

[pwdrive]

Very nice Col, that lathe of yours looks the same type as the one I used to have...is it a 36" Record?
As David said oak is not the best and easiest to turn and finish, quite often the oak comes boxed heart if bought green with a view to drying it yourself, as you probably know boxed heart is no good unless your after the distressed look.
When I ran my sawmill I used to cut and sell turning blanks but I got fed up with time wasters!!
I had one bloke that said if I got any nice turning stock in yew, beech, cherry etc he would buy it no problem. A couple of weeks later I was offered a parcel of yew branchwood from the Tamerton Foliate estate on the Tamar, I bought the lot and hired a 20 ft wagon, two wagon loads in all.
It was lovely stuff and had been down for about 12 months or so, all 2 to 6" stuff, ideal. I phoned the bloke up and told him what I had and he came down to the sawmill yard pronto "How much" he said " 50 pence a running foot upto 3" and a quid a runing foot from 3" to 6" was my reply " no, don't want to pay that much" "fine now p**s off was my reply, I had also sourced a Grade A spalted beech which I had planked up into 1.5, 3 & 5" slabs it was the best I had ever come across, a bit like comparing South American opals to Australian opels, he did not want that either, I managed to sell the beach as one parcel to a proffesional wood turner in London but I was lumbered with the yew, I did not have time to turn it myself so over a couple of seasons I fed it into my woodburner, and very nice it burnt too!

Lawrence.

[Yorkie]

A familiar tale - someone wanting summat for nowt!

I don't think the average guy even thinks about what effort is involved in converting felled trees into usable timber. The main problem for most hobby turners is that of seasoning green timber. You can, and many do, turn unseasoned timber into rough bowls with say a 1" wall thickness, then leave it to season for a few months. It warps of course, but the drying process is speeded up, and the bowl can then be re-mounted on the lathe and trued up and turned thinner to finish it. Otherwise, unless kiln dried, I think the yardstick is one year for each inch thickness of the timber.

Part-seasoned turning blanks of such timbers as sycamore and beech say 10” diam x 3” deep cost £10 - £15 depending on where from. A 6” diam x 3” blank will cost £6.00 - £8.00. It sounds expensive, but when you knock the VAT off, the retailers profit, and back down the line to the original tree and all involved in converting it to bowl blanks, no-one is getting rich quick on the deal. Spalted beech is highly prized by woodturners – the ‘spalting’ being a fungal infestation that creeps through generally felled trees, especially beech, and leaves what look like spidery black lines through the timber, which give it an attractive appearance. It’s allegedly carcinogenic, and not considered food safe for such things as salad bowls or fruit bowls. It's not to everyone's liking. I've attached a pic of a little 'finial box' that I turned in spalted beech, about 3" diam and 5" tall with the finial. It was a bit of a clumsy effort with an ungainly finial, and I've only attached it to show the effect of spalting.

I'm often approached by people who have felled or are about to fell trees, to ask if our Club members are interested but invariably they aren't. A Vicar who has done a bit of woodturning approached me and said he'd had a couple of large yew trees felled, which were there for the taking. No-one was interested, though I collected some of the branchwood to turn a few mushrooms. The trees got put through a chipper, which is a tragic waste of timber. Yew turns beautifully and has an amazing pedigree. The heartwood and sapwood are clearly defined and one is strong in compression – the other in tension. This made it ideal for making longbows, and it’s no exaggeration that it helped win the battle of Agincourt. I believe that in the middle ages, because the climate in Italy was milder than ours, their yew bowstaves were held in high regard, and for this reason, Italian imports to this country such as wine, had a tax placed on them to be paid in bowstaves. I don’t think that even today, they’ve found a better material to make a longbow.

For hundreds of years it was mandatory for men below 60 to have bows and arrows and to practice archery, and even male children from 7 – 17 also had to.

A Statue in 33rd year of Henry's reign (1541) stated:

CAP. IX. An Act for the Maintenance of Artillery, and debarring unlawful Games. "RECITAL of Stats. 3 H.8.c.3. & 6 H.8.c.2. Several new devised Games the "Cause of the Decay of Archery. - All Men under the Age of sixty Years "shall have Bows and Arrows for shooting. Men-Children between Seven "Years and Seventeen shall have a Bow and 2 Shafts. Men about Seventeen "Years of Age shall keep a Bow and 4 Arrows - Penalty 6s.8d."
S1,2,3. "Shooting at Rovers. Shooting in Yew-bows. The Inhabitants of every Town "shall cut Butts and shoot at them."
S4. "Common Bows shall be made of "Elm, Ash, &c."
S5. Repealed 8 Eliz.c.10.s.6. "The prices of the several "Sorts of Bows."
S6. Repealed 8 El.c.10.s.6. "Sale of Seasonable Timber "by one Fletcher to another."
S7. "Bowyers and Fletchers, &c. not free "of London, shall upon Commandment dwell elsewhere."
S8. "Aliens shall "not convey Bows or Arrows beyond the Sea."
S9. "Aliens shall not use "shooting in Long-bows; Penalty forfeiture of Bows."
S10.

The requirement for all men under 60 to have bows and arrows wasn’t repealed until as recently as 1863!

Strewth, we'd get locked up for doing it now!

[pwdrive]

Nice turning David, that spalting is nice too, beech dust is not nice stuff,I know a few guys that have had problems because of it, same goes for iroko. The spalted beech log that me and a friend converted (previous post) was used as a counter balance on the back of his crane so we could snatch up four or five douglas fir butts at a time without the crane toppling over, most of the beech we cut went for pallet boards, there used to be a regular order from one particular company and one of the specified lengths was pallett boards 540 mm long I will never forget those ever! we used to get £160 per cube meter sawn for them. It's a lot of boards.
Out of that money we had to pay for the sawlogs, pay for the logging waggon to deliver them to the yard, we then had to convert using two large bandsaws (band rack and band resaw) then crosscutting, stacking and banding and then shift the 60% waste (sawdust) out of the way ready for the next run and buy more diesel for the 100Kva generator...what a life! As you say most have no idea how and where the wood comes from, when cutting pallet wood we used to buy in "Bar Material" 6 ft & 8 ft logs Top Diam. 5 to 7"
The two of us used to break down 10 cubic metres a shift into 4" cants ready for resawing the following day into pallett board blanks ready for crosscutting, that was in the early 90's recession, still, it put food on the table.
The crack with good spalted beech was catching it right, if you opened it up to soon it would have not developed to its best, leave it to late and the spalting was good but a lot of its surrounding timber would have turnrd to puff (soft) which made it difficult for turning and finishing.
Unfortunately for me I had an argument with a large stick of douglas fir (or should I say I got in the way) and the log won and I had severe back problems so I had to give up full time sawmilling I sold all my band rack and all my kit, I still keep my hand in the old wood game now and then, I am fortunate to own my own woodland so I go down and fell a few for firwood as part of the woodland management, also do some gteen oak timber work now and again, mainly oak roofs and structural framing.

David, if there is enough of you in your club it might be worth investing in a second hand chainsaw mill for breaking down any log finds, I have a Logosol which I still use and they do come up for sale second hand, often with the correct chainsaw, they cut accurate and will peel a 2-3mm venner no problem, the finish is better than a large bandsaw, if you go to the other vintage radio site and click on my profile avitar (pwdrive) you can see one in action, they are very light weight and are transportable in a van or even a car
Anyway that's enough of ranting about the wood game I ought to be talking about radios really.

Lawrence.

[Yorkie]

I went 'over the wall' to view the pics Lawrence - crikey - there's some seriously big stuff there - man-sized saws in action tackling man-sized logs! What an arduous way to make a living!

Re our woodturning club, like all such clubs, though we have about 65 members and a turnout of 55 - 60 at our monthly meetings, a lot of members do little turning and go to meetings to see demonstrations and to admire other people's work. I don't think they shift much timber a year between them! We have a programme of professional demonstrators each month - all members of the Register of Professional Turners (RPT) and a themed competition each month too. Usually there are 10 - 15 entries, and ovedrall a very good standard is attained.

The demonstrator in December is a well known chap called Nicos Siragas from Greece - a very skilled turner. He married a local girl, and they come to nearby Beverely to her parents each Christmas time, so he works his way up the country doing demonstrations in December till he gets to this neck of the woods. Last December he travelled across country from Bristol to a club in East Anglia, coping with the snow, (which he never sees in Greece from one yeaer to the next). and when he got to the club, there was a notice on the door 'Closed due to inclement weather', so while he'd travelled maybe 200 miles from Bristol to get there, the members didn't want to turn out from within a radius of maybe five miles! He had a mobile phone and no-one bothered to let him know not to come. He then travelled up to East Yorks.

As to confining discussions on this forum to radio only, unlike other forums, this one isn't proscriptive. It's a forum - not a house of correction. We can freely discuss other interests, hobbies and so forth, and no-one gets too sniffy if you post in the wrong section or drift off topic. That said of course, if too much of what appears on the forum is unrelated to its primary purpose as a vintage radio forum, it does tend to water down the radio aspect. But we've got by fine this last ten months since the forum was formed.

The admin team and members have tried to create an ethos which encourages, rather than inhibits, posting. Otherwise, people stop posting, and just 'lurk' and read the diminishing posts of others, and instead of it being a forum where people share ideas and interests, and acquaintenceships develop into friendships, it becomes a 'reading room'. That's ok if there are books on the shelves, but someone needs to put the reading material there. IMHO, if there are fifty or even more viewings for each post, as there are in some forums, something isn't quite right. We've tried to learn from that, and 10,000 posts to a forum still in its infancy is, I think, an encouraging sign. Or so it seems to me!

[Retired]

Hi,

It's nice to see such a simple thread generating interest and replies which encourages further postings. Although I enjoy tinkering around with cabinet and chassis restorations it makes a change to diversify and fortunately this forum accommodates such activities.

Thanks Alan, I know an average wooden pit prop will withstand 60 tons load before failing so I think these legs will hold up a chaise longue. The curtain idea would be good if I could partition the far end of the garage off but really isn't needed as I made the garage doors and they are a good fit excluding the weather; it was just that I had to move the woodturning lathe to make bench space for the Myford lathe I have in kit form and the new position is very near the doors. I don't know what it was doing outside as I turned yesterday afternoon but it looked like a waterfall down the outside of the doors and it could have included sleet or hail; I didn't pop my head out to have a look.

Thank you for your kind comments David. Oak is indeed a difficult timber to work with; not only in a lathe but in general cabinetwork as well. Tools need to be good quality and kept sharp. I roughed the legs down with a gouge which as you know leaves a poor surface on oak so I then changed to using the skew chisel which gives the best finish possible from the tool leaving little sanding to complete each leg; I like to go over with a stick or dowel pressing quite hard whilst the lathe is in motion and this burnishes the surface whilst compressing the fibres giving a nice shiny hard surface. The only problem with using a skew chisel is the risk of losing a few front teeth.

I do need to sort out better tool sharpening; I used to own a Denford 16" Sharpedge but sold it to free up space; this machine had a 16" diameter horizontal grinding wheel power fed with honing oil and a decent guiding system to hold the tool being sharpened; it would leave a dead flat bevel on chisels and plane irons. I made a belt sander and yesterday tried to sharpen the skew chisel only to end up with a double bevel as I was sharpening free hand; the 60 grit belt removed metal OK but I intend to look into various types and grits of belts together with making a proper guiding system as the belt sander once set up is a good machine for tool sharpening and doesn't overheat the tool to the same extent as a double ended grinder. I paid £15 for a diamond "oil stone" and it is absolutely useless; perhaps dear diamond grit stones are better but this one has put me off for life. If I do sort out a decent tool sharpening method then I'll post the details on the forum.

Thanks Lawrence; yes my lathe is a Record Power but the 24" model although I do have very long spare bed bars. Bron bought this for me from Tabwell Tools who used to have three tool shops in Bakewell; it was a Christmas present and at the time I think was £199.99, I was not at all amused after owning the lathe for a short while to see the same model on sale at £99. I've had this lathe for over 20 years and although basic it is a very good lathe and enjoyable to use. You can't beat good old cast iron for decent machinery.

Converting timber from log is indeed a very heavy job; a newly felled tree is heavy due to the water content (sap) and expensive handling equipment is needed as well as decent saws. I remember many years ago watching a fascinating New Yankee Workshop episode on TV covering a huge sawmill in America. This sawmill was so gigantic it had a rail-road feeding it with logs and it converted six million board foot per week; now that is some serious quantity of timber.

When I left work I wanted to start up my own solid oak furniture business and contacted "Arrowsmith's" who sold kilning equipment. I spent £1,000 and bought the drying equipment and was referred to a sawmill near Ripon who used this kilning equipment and could see it in action. I was most impressed and this sawmill was to also slab the timber I needed. The more I looked into starting my own business I retired aged 53 in disgust as no one bothered whether I succeeded or not as long as I was ripped off and could employ people from the dole queue. Incentive to start my own business was negative even the rent of the old mill unit I was after attracted VAT. I'm glad to be out of it.

That's a lovely piece of turning David and up to your usual gallery standard; thanks for sharing it with us.I've never turned spalted timbers having heard how dangerous they can be to health as can many un-spalted timbers. I believe newly converted Sycamore has to be end reared to prevent serious staining and perhaps Lawrence will care to expand on this also any other such information would be most interesting. Some woods are referred to as "sneeze wood" whilst others are called "Stinky wood". Am I correct in thinking Olive wood can destroy both lathes and tooling because it causes rapid rusting? A few months ago we were watching TV and the guy I believe was in New Zealand; he stated that one particular shrub was so poisonous that to brush against the leaves has led to many people immediately committing suicide in horrendous pain.

I can't agree with you more David regarding the relaxed atmosphere of this forum; I wonder how it would have fared had it been restricted entirely to radio and TV restorations? I've always thought there can't be many ways to change a cap or resistor and once a top class restoration has been completed; what then? I do like to see other members restorations and of course highly encourage them but for myself I'm a bit lost because I've completely stripped radio chassis and restored them and have restored basket case cabinets both of which were highly enjoyable but I am always on the lookout for something new to tackle and to learn new things so I try to diversify into areas of our hobby that are little covered such as the wave winder restoration and making pot tracks from scratch. I don't mind unusual projects that frustrate and wind me up as these are the ones I learn so much from.

Even this simple thread is interesting as I'm learning all the time from the replies; I've seen another of your beautifully turned items and Lawrence has added an interesting post regarding his sawmill days. What a great forum this is.

Kind regards, Col

[pwdrive]

Hello Col, I used to up end all the hardwood boards as they came off the saw and let them stand for a few days to skin off before stickering them, I mainly used Sitka Spruce for my stickers as my sawmill was predominately a softwood mill, you have to be carefull with freshcut Sycamore as the colour is easily tainted by tannin or prolonged damp.

Green oak framing is a different ball game to todays carpentry, I have worked mainly on oak roofs and "A" frames/trusses also ceiling beams, we found the French beaming oak to be the best as the French really know how to manage their oak hardwood stands. Worked in The Channel Isles doing the green oak for a friend of mine, he speeks good French and knows the oak sawmill owners in France, we had the oak delivered to St Peter Port on an old French fishing boat !
The tools required are pretty basic, 1.5 & 3" chisels (like razors) hammers (steel & skin) one very large rubber sledge hammer ( nicknamed the pursuader) a chain saw a mid power concrete breaker (will explain)
A beam plane ( 12" Makita electric planer) sometimes a curved plane (6" Makita electric curved planer) beam morticers, chain not chisel ( Makita & Maffel) a good hand circular saw (Festool, the best) a large hand 20" circular saw (Maffel, amazing saw) and a good 3 or 4" electric hand plane a good selection of hand planes rebate, bullnose, jack etc. a good square (we used a "Japanese Square") and a good sharp chalk or ink line.
The only sucsesful way to mark out green oak beams is to snap a center line on the best face and take all measurements for other center lines, marking joints etc from that line, that way the joints will fit even if the beams have a bit of twist in them.
Some mortices especially on a low pitch A Frame can run to a considerable depth and are quite wide (3 to 4" on 9 to 12" stock, you can't do the slant cut for them with the average beam morticer, not even from both sides, a Holtzer might do it but thats ten grands worth, the answer...use a Bosch mid size concrete breaker, they come with a 3" concrete chisel amongst others, this chisel can be wetstone ground and then honed to 25 degrees, result...one 3" very sharp wood chisel that fits into a hammer breaker, it slices through the end grain of oak like nothing else, I used to remove bulk stock with this to within about a mil or so of the joint lines then a few strokes with a hand chisel to the line and the jobs all done.
Somewhere I have a few photo's of some oak framing handywork, if I ever find them I will post them up.

Lawrence.

[Retired]

Hi,

Many thanks Lawrence for sharing your experiences which I find highly interesting.

I always said to Bron that if I had plenty of money I would love an oak framed house. I've seen a number of oak framed houses built on TV on such as Kevin McCloud's program (Grand Designs) and these were in French Oak.

I've never worked with green oak but I believe it is much easier than working with seasoned oak and kinder to the tooling.

The concrete breaker idea is brilliant and shows how power tools can be adapted for jobs they were never intended to do but can do these jobs well.

I think you and your friends must be called supermen; a 20" hand circular saw must be a beast of a saw and I'm surprised you could lift it let alone use it in anger; such a saw would break limbs if a kick back occurred? I didn't even know hand circular saws where available at this size so once again I'm learning something new. It's a good job these saws are not available at B&Q or the A&E department would be on overtime.

Chain morticers are lovely machines and remove waste far easier than the equivalent chisel morticer. I've owned a couple of industrial chisel morticers but never used a chain type.

It would be good to see your pictures if you ever find them and if you do please send me a PM in case I miss them.

You must have found such work deeply satisfying giving you a meaning to life and pride in your work; it must also have been heavy work.

Kind regards, Col.