Spindle shaping continues. After tapering the top, and sizing the bottom, the whole thing needs to get made into an octagon - after drying, this will make shaping with the spokeshave much easier. The ideal is to have each facet the same as all of the others, running from the top to the bottom. Easier said than done.
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| Note the little notch in the shavehorse head which helps keep the spindle on edge |
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| Now make it octagonal |
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Finished for now, ready to dry
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You can see that this spindle is not perfectly straight. Part of that is the whole fiber thing, and part is that the drawknife work is delicate. This level of bend doesn't matter, it will easily straighten out when the chair is assembled - more extreme bends can be straightened using a heat gun, if need be.
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| Eighteen done - the ones with blue tape have defects |
One of the spindles has a pretty extreme crook in it - I can't straighten it, and I don't want it in a chair. The other got a bit too thin in the middle below where the upper tenon will be. I also don't want that in a chair. But there are other chairs I make which use short spindles, and these two will work just fine there.
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Into the kiln for a few days at 140 ℉ after which they'll be ready for final shaping
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