Planing, jointing, and gluing begins

Today I picked up the White Oak wood. It took a bit of jointing and planing to square the wood, and it's almost perfect. I say almost because it has not been planed down to the final thickness. That will be done when the seat has been glued up. At that point all the pieces will be planed together

One of the three cut pieces

When I lifted one of the three pieces of White Oak I laughed. It is INCREDIBLY HEAVY!
Imagine a sumo wrestler holding a huge piece of lead. Then imagine his anvil selling coach came along and jumped on his back. It's that heavy.

Heavy

Truxtun Hildner is my go to guy for my hardwood needs. He has a shop in Martinez, Calif. called The Hardwood Resource Inc. If you're in the N. Calif. area I highly recommend him. Not only can he obtain any wood you might need, he can answer any woodworking question as well. He has a really friendly golden retriever too!

Truxtun planing the wood

I've laid the pieces out for the seat, and placed 1/2 dowels where they will go. I decided to use dowels instead of biscuits when I found out how heavy this is. I think it will add support. The dowels are 4", but I will cut them down to a smaller size before gluing. There's no way I can get that dowel in that far in without the glue and friction stopping it.

Laying out dowel pattern

As I'm laying out the dowels, the doorbell rings. It's my neighbors boyfriend who has brought me two small cupcakes that she made. I set them down next to my tiny seat parts, on my tiny chair. This must be fate. What are the odds you get small cupcakes as you work on a small chair?

Yum!

Back to work. I use my new self centering jig to drill the first set of holes.

Drilling

I used the dowel centers to mark the corresponding holes in the other piece. I said a prayer, and put dowels in to test the alignment. It worked. I then glued and clamped the first half of the seat. Tomorrow I will do the other half, then glue both of those pieces together.

Glued up, and resting

Next post- plunge router time!