St. Kilian chapel – Pastor chair, part 1
The next piece that I am working on for the Saint Kilian chapel is the Pastor chair. It will have similar octagonal columns to the ambo. This is my design: chair-PARTS.pdf. I am sure there will be a few tweaks along the way, but it is a start.
I pulled some 8/4 stock and cut it down to the rough sizes I needed for the 24″ long front legs and the 42″ long rear legs.
I cleaned up and flattened one face and one edge on the jointer.
Then made the opposite face parallel on the planer, taking the thickness down to 2″.
Then I set the table saw blade to 67.5° and cut the first angled edge on each board.
All eight pieces are cut so I matched them up and marked them so that the grain is opposed for each.
I put my 2″ core box bit into my router table and set it for about 1/2″ deep to make the first pass. I also set the fence so that my start and stop marks were 1″ to either side of the bit, and so the bit fell center on my leg blanks.
Then I dropped the first leg blank onto the bit, holding it tightly in place and slowly cut the first pass on all eight boards.
After the first pass, I raised the bit to full depth using a 1″ thick block as a depth gauge.
Then slowly repeated the process until all eight were cut to full depth.
I applied a thin bead of glue to each half then spread it evenly around, dumping the excess into the center.
Then I clamped each one up, making sure that the edges stayed aligned.
When the glue was dried, I sanded off any squeeze-out. I set the table saw blade to 45° and the fence to the correct location for the first pass.
After the first pass, I adjusted the fence location and made six more cuts to make a perfect octagon.
I had figured out all the dimensions for the fence locations on the ambo so it went a bit faster this time around.
I made each of the columns about 1/4″ over-sized so that I could cut the ends off square when they were finished. I used my portable miter saw for this because it doesn’t slide, like my large miter saw. The large one has trouble staying perfectly 90° in both orientations. The small one stays locked in, so it is just easier to use that one.
Even half a degree off is enough to see the columns angling away from each other when stood together.
Enough fun for today.
Midnight Woodworking 