Pair Of Walnut Chippendale Chairs Continued - Part 2

Now that the major joinery is completed, I start to refine the design.  Here I am bandsawing the shape of the crest rail.  Again I use cardboard templates copied from the full size drawings.

More bandsawing of the crest rail, you can see it beginning to take shape and the lines copied for carving the shell in the center.

Roughed out and somewhat fitted to the rear legs, final fitting will be after carving.

I start to work on the arm supports,  Using a cardboard template, I bandsaw  the rough shape, my goose necks are not as large as the originals because I thought that this would be a weak spot.
The square tenons, I rounded over later which made it easier to fit.

Cutting out the shape of the arms is a real challenge, once you have the rough shape like below you need an inside template and outside template for the sides.

Here you can see the outside template. There is a lot of shaping of the arms. I think these are the most difficult part of the the project to get right. I think I made 5 because I ruined one.

Drilling round mortise holes for the arm support tenons. I did this before the bandsawing while the shape was still flat.

You have to hold the arms at odd angles to get the correct shape, This one is though.

Another odd angle, you could take all of this material off with a rasp but this is quicker.

Checking the rough shape and fitting. There is a lot of work with rasps and files to get everything to shape. I didn't think I was good enough to use a square tenon on the arm supports, by using a round one I was able to swing the arms in place on the legs.

Now for the shaping. Using rasps, files and spokeshaves I rounded over the back of the legs. The front remains flat.

You can see the rounded shape here on most of the leg.  However there are still flat spots for the ams and rear seat rail.

Because of the angle of the leg the side rail needs to be feathered into the leg at the back. Note I did not run the side rail tenon all the way through the leg like many early Philadelphia chairs.  Later ones did not go through.

Need to make a shallow mortise in the leg for the arm about 1/16 inch so it can rest flush.

That is for today. Too be continued with some carving of the details.