Orchard Street Sofa #2: Starting the Arms
I leaned heavily on the Paolini video for making the arms since bent lamination is a new adventure for me. He suggested resawing the laminations for the arms starting with the table saw them finishing cutting them with the band saw. My blanks were just about 1.125″ thick and I wanted to get 3 lams from each blank, so I switched to a thin kerf blade.
Remember to keep the same side of the blank against the fence. I recommend a high fence to eliminate any chance of the stock tipping as it is being pushed through the blade. On to the band saw for the final cut for each lam.
After the lam is cut off, I needed to run the blanks through the planer to get a flat surface to push against the TS fence. Repeat the above until all the lams have been cut and planed to 1/4″. While resawing with the TS wastes a bit more wood than I would like, it is a good way to prevent the BS blade from wandering-not that mine ever has. 😉
I stacked the lams to prevent any warping if possible and so far, so good.
My next step was to make the bending form. Paolini drew a baseline on the plans and ticked off 1″ increments, then measured the distance from the baseline to the bottom of the arm profile at each increment. Next he drew a new baseline on a 6″ wide piece of particle board and again ticked off 1″ increments and marked the appropriate height with lines perpendicular to the particle board base line. Then he connected the dots and cut about 1/8″ outside that line with the BS. Finally, he faired the curve with a horizontal belt sander. I followed his guidance and you can see my rendition.
I think the photographer was out to lunch for the above segment. :/
After that, it is simply a matter of marking the 7 additional particle board strips and cutting the curves with the BS.
After they are all cut, glue and nail one of them to the original and run them across the router table with a bearing bit aligned with the faired piece.
I gotta get a dependable photog!
Attach a stop at one end and on one side of the form and cover it with tape so the glue won’t stick to the form. I used 1/4″ melamine for the side.
The hardest part of this was lugging the particle board form around, it must be about 50 pounds when complete. I had a few minutes before quitting time, so I cut the side slats to final length. I used a stop to ensure they were all the same length.
More tomorrow if all goes well. Thanks for reading along.