Shop Notes 3

Ahhhhhhh, cedar! Is there any nicer smelling wood than cedar?

One of the things that has been on my To Do list for a few weeks is to make a couple of Adirondack Chairs for my newly cleaned deck. I bought Norm Abrams’ “New Yankee Workshop” plan probably 15 or more years ago. I made 1 chair for myself and about 7 or 8 for a former coworker. Those were all pressure treated lumber and relatively simple since the wood came from the store already milled to the desired widths and thicknesses. (BTW, my chair sat out in the weather for many years and I finally discarded it a year or 2 ago.)

It was before I was cutting trees and keeping prize lumber. Maybe 10-12 years ago I cut down a cedar tree that yielded over 400 board feet of lumber and it has been air drying under my shop since then. Over the years I had laid down a lot of stuff on top just to get things out of the way. Now that I wanted some of that cedar, it required a lot of moving. And what better time than 4pm on a Sunday when it is hotter than Hades outside?

Anyway, several boards were moved into the shop, and most of it is really pretty. The tops of the boards look grayed, but underneath is all pretty red cedar. Once it goes through the thickness planer it will look gorgeous again. I figure that cutting and milling the parts, and then assembling the chairs may take roughly 2 weeks of an hour here and an hour there.

Yesterday I did some scanning and rough cutting. I cut the 10 back pieces out from between knots and other defects. Today I would like to get the 8 arms and legs roughed out as well. I'll plane and shape those 18 pieces over the weekend. Then will start on the 6 cross pieces and the 10 seat slats (which don't have to be as carefully selected).

I will take and post pictures in a couple of days.