If anyone knows any other films that depict roorkhee chairs, post them. I’d like to see them!

The only change I made was to use copper rivets throughout and to ditch the leg straps in favor of an adjustable cross brace under the seat. If we can post links, then the link to pictures of my project will appear below:

http://s34.beta.photobucket.com/user/thenodnarb/media/Furniture/IMG_4591.jpg.html?sort=6&o=0

I still have to find the garnet shellac which apparently I have to order online. All I can find in stores is the orange/amber shellac.

I might actually make a pair of these now.

So you don’t have a wood lathe? Here are a few suggestions for making the stretchers round:

1. Use a router rounding over bit (with roller bearing) , with a radius of one half of the thickness of your square stock. Run it along each of the four corners, and you have created a round stretcher. A little sanding will help remove any irregularities. Irregularities are reduced if you use a router table, and keep a small square section at each end of the stick, which you have cut over-long to allow for this. This will help maintain the registration of the faces correctly.

2. Start with square stock and remove the corners to create an octagon. Do that again and you have a 16 faced polygon. Very nice just left like that! Or sand this profile to round. Sanding from 16 face polygon to the round is done by rotating it and bending sandpaper around the revolving stretcher. How about creatively chucking it in your drill press with a nail dead centre in the opposite end housed into a vice or piece of wood. It works, but you can’t beat a wood lathe for the sanding either…

How to create the polygon? Hand plane it, or use a table saw with a tilting arbor, etc. My favourite method is to create jigs for your thicknesser so you can consistently machine the faces. This way you can go further and create a 32 faced polygon if you are crazy enough!

3. In the spirit of our favourite anarchist, use your hand plane to take off the corners and then create the round. Use a spokeshave (or drawknife if you are experienced enough), use a moulding plane with a radius as close as you can get, create a scraper with the right kind of radius to help clean up the prifile consistently, etc.
…Just don’t use a dowel plate. It will look like crap, with torn fibres everywhere, slight dog-legs according to the grain deviations, etc.

Just remember, the true woodworking anarchist would not buy pre-made dowels on principle! Somebody else has determined the diameter and species of timber. No. Be your own independent person, choose your own wood type and diameter, create your own way of solving the problems, and go for it.

Just a word of warning about lovely straight grained hardwood stretchers – beware of “falling shakes” in the timber. Read and inspect your stock very carefully.

Above all, enjoy the delights of these beautiful chairs.

-Steve