We were asked as a follow-on to the Walnut Bar & Mantel project to construct 4 custom bar stools that paired with the bar. We went through several design iterations and settled on the below. We are excited about the design as it allows us to work with our friend Neil at Taylor Fire & Iron to create the metal work as well as do a little wood steam-bending which has been on our furniture bucket-list for a while.
The walnut for the seats and backs comes from some walnut salvaged from a heap of logs that were given to us by a property owner near Kill Creek Park. The logs were cut as part of a trail expansion in 2010 and were in pretty rough shape, but luckily the heart-wood in walnut holds up pretty well.
The first step was to break down the walnut into usable chunks and then to use the jointer to create a flat reference surface as well as one edge that was perpendicular to that surface.
Once we had our stock roughly dimensioned, we created a template for the seat showing the placement of the swivel, the rounded edges as well as the recessed area in the seat bottom. We used this template to create the overall shape, and proceeded to cut the boards into smaller pieces and then glue them back together once we had cut out the scooped portion of the seat on the band-saw.
While we were working on building the test seat, we started prepping for the most ambitious part of the project, steam-bending the seat back. The first thing we needed to do, was to build a jig that aligned to the radius that we were looking for in the finished product. To do this we glued several pieces of plywood together, then cut it on the band-saw, sanded it smooth and lastly built a base that allowed them to slide together while maintaining alignment.
Then it was time to build our steam box. This will hold the pieces while they are steam heated in preparation for bending. 3/4 dowel rods keep the wood hovering in the middle of the box so that all faces receive the heat and moisture necessary for bending.
Bending day arrived, our first ever, and we flipped on our new steamer driving the heat inside our steam box to close to 212 degrees. The board sat in the steam box for an hour at temp and then went directly to the bending jig where it will sit overnight drying/cooling.
So it took several tries to get the bending process ironed out including shimming up our form, but the results speak for themselves.
While we were bending the seat backs, we cut the wood for the 3 remaining seats, hand carved them and glued them together.
While the glue was drying we popped by to see our friend Neil at Taylor Fire and Iron to review our mounting approach for both the seats and backs. Based on our previous meet-up, Neil had already made some solid progress on the gantry-style stool bottoms.
While we were finishing the bar stools, the client decided they wanted an additional 6 counter-height chairs so production began on the additional seats. You can see here the custom metal backs as well as the seats being finished.
Assembly time… Jen has clearly had enough of my picture taking
Here are the finished bar stools in their final home
