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Now it's time to work on the back braces. You may recall that these were made by laminating strips back around here and since then they have simply been cleaned up on the planer and trimmed to a width of 1 5/16 inches. Although now, as you see in this picture, I have cut the bottom ends to shape. This was done with a template supplied by Hal and unlike the tops which are all a bit different from one another, the bottoms are the same.

After cutting to shape on the bandsaw and sanding the spindles rather precisely to a width of 25/64 inches at the extremity (over the last inch where they enter the seat or headrest), they have been rounded using the little router jig shown here which elevates the place to rest the spindle just enough to allow for its curvature.

Note that I mark the bit rotation direction on this jig. It is all too easy to get confused with something like this where the tool is turned to unfamiliar angles (its not in a table, nor is in the usual upright position). A mistake could cost me a spindle or even a finger!

Now I have cut the back braces to length and shaped the tops to fit the holes in the headrest. Again the shaping was done with the aid of a template supplied by Hal. The shoulders are asymmetric and the lengths of the round parts of the spindles differ but one template suitably marked up provides all the necessary information.

Here are the back braces, now shaped at their top ends. The wide angle lens does funny things to the perspective- these braces are all about the same length and they do fit in the holes in the headrest!

The chair is actually sitting on its rockers now and you can see that the back braces do indeed fit!

On to part 19