Hello from between the buses in Indianapolis my  friends. Well after much work on smoothing out the seat and a lot of muscle rub to take the pain away it was time to move on to the front legs. 

So to begin with I needed to blanks that were 19 1/2 inches long and a little wider than 2 3/4. Basically you want them wider than the width of your bridle joint in the seat so you can plane down to the exact size. You keep checking the fit until the blank  just fits.

Once you have the blank fitted you have to take a different approach than you would if you were using power tools. In Charles Brock's video he then cuts a ruff shape out using his patter for the front leg, then he turns the legs and drills a 1/2" wide 1" deep hole on each end of the leg for the dowel you will use to attach the arms and rockers. But since I am doing this unplugged and don't even have a pole lathe I have to drill those holes first. You actually do an offset turning on these legs so you can see in the photo where the leg actually will be. You either measure from the inside of the leg an 1 1/8" or measure from the outside 7/8" I should mention once the leg is fitted mark a center line on the leg on both side from top to bottom. I opted to measure from the inside since my blank really came out to an 1 7/8" and not a true 2". Then you use a compass and scribe a 1 1/4" circumference. You leg will have a tapered turn to it going from roughly 1 1/2" at the bridle joint to an 1 1/4" at the arm and rocker joint. One thing I noticed when drilling, and this  may be my technique, but I did some test holes to see which bit was best for the 1/2 dowel. I  had to go down a size from the 1/2" bit because it left to big of a hole for the dowel.

I didn't have a depth stop so I used a bandaid on my bit.

Once the two holes are drill then you can move on to the joinery. You have to measure down from the top 7"and make a mark. Then you take your calipers and get a true measurement or size of your tenon on your seat. Lock your calipers and then use them to  mark out the width of  your tenon, on your leg blank, down from the 7" mark you put on the leg blank. Then scribe the lines across your blank and on each side. Once that is done then go back to your bridle joint on your seat, and measure, using the depth gauge on your calipers, the true depth of your bridle joint, that is from the side of the seat in. It should be roughly 1/2" but check it just the same. Then set your marking gauge to that depth. and mark the sides of your leg blank as well as the back. Then carefully cut your joint out, cutting on the marked lines and then kerfing out the rest of the waste material. Then you can chop it out with a chisel.

Once that is done you can smooth out the bottom of your joint with a router plane, if  you have one. Then test fit the joint to see how your doing. Slowly clean out the joint with a chisel or router plane to obtain a good fit. Next you have to make the curves on the leg blank. What I did when I drilled out the holes on the seat part wast take a scrap piece of plywood and use the same bit to make a jig, Then as I rasped the curve in the leg blank I would use the jig to check it.

 So here you can see the joint fitted nicely. This actually was the second leg. The first leg came out a bit loose and had some gaps. But on the second try it came out quite nicely. One thing I noticed when watching Charles Brock's video was that the curve was much more pronounced. It actually went from the edge of the joint curving almost to the middle of the joint. I guess that is  the result from a 1/2" rabbeting bit. Since I had cut the initial join before working on the tenon portion I wasn't able to use a bigger bit with a bigger circumference. I think on the next chair I may try drilling the holes first then cut the join to the holes. But I think it turned out well for my first time.

 
So here are the two legs fitted to the seat. Next up drilling the holes for the screws and rough shaping the legs.

Well, my friend I hope you are enjoying the post as much as I am enjoying building this chair. So until the next post God bless and keep making shavings.

Mark Hynek