Okay, apologies to Will Smith, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity for the pun.

Even with handmade furniture there are times when a jig becomes an indispensable tool. In this case, assembly of the dock chair that I posted about earlier.  It’s an inherent characteristic of this design that minute errors at the intersection of the two sub assemblies translate into large errors in the eventual positioning of the seat and back.

Making the prototype chair was an exercise in trial and error.   But the second chair was pretty much the same problem, despite having a correct model to follow.  No matter how carefully I scribed and fit the parts, small errors amplified into major problems in seat to back angle, overall angle of recline, and seat height.

So I decided to make an assembly jig that would ensure accurate and precise placement of the critical parts that determined how the chair would sit.  I used the prototype chair (partially disassembled) to align the jig.  In a couple of days, I’ll have parts ready to assemble and we’ll know how well it works.

Cheers,
Tom

Ps.  Oh, and yes, before anyone mentions it, I do occasionally work in clutter.  I tend to work, and clean, in binges.

PPs.  Well, the jig worked, but there were some errors that required final adjustments as before.  Only this time instead of making adjustments to a chair, I was making adjustments to the jig that makes the chair.

In the above photos, the prototype chair is on the left, and the production chair is on the right.

So after a full day of futzing around, I’m now ready to make production chairs.  The only problem is that Summer is nearly over, and I need to start thinking about Christmas stuff.