More Legs

Here is Chris Durbin working on the seat for the settee that he is making this week. Chris has come a long ways as a craftsman since I met him a few years ago, it's a joy to see his progress.



One of the elements of a settee that is missing from chairs(or at least less noticable) is the alignment of the three legs in the front and back. It's important that the legs are all raked to the same degree. Another important aspect of the legs is that the various elements line up between the side legs and the center one. Because the center leg has no splay (meaning it doesn't tilt to the side when viewed from the front), it is a slightly compressed version of its neighbors. To achieve the correct proportions for the turning, I draw a leg at the splay angle of the outer legs and then draw horizontal lines from each element to a leg without splay to arrive at the template for the center leg. You can see the drawing below.



Although the compression is minor, you can see the results in the photo below. When all of the legs are reamed into the seat, the elements of all three turnings align. Subtle, but it's there.

For those of you keeping up on the farm developments, we have 8 new chicks. These are "meat" birds and will be with us for about 2 months. I'm dedicated to giving these little guys the highest quality of life possible, so they moved into the insulated coop while my layers got new housing.



Here are the summer digs for my layers. A bit more open and airy. As you can see, they are confined to the area defined by the electric netting, our perennial gardens could not longer take the abuse! In winter they'll get their other coop back, but as of tonight, they were all happily perched inside their new home, ready for bed.



Another example of crappy construction that fits the bill, and all with materials that I had laying around! (forgive the pun)