Restore a rusty brace

And .. there’s a cat too!

I’ve had a request for more details regarding how I made my Roorkhee by hand.  This post is an attempt at that, but some what repeating info in the previous post.

There are many inspirational photos of Roorkhee Chairs to inspire your own Roorkhee project.  I collected a few here.  Hopefully these photos will inspire you to be free to make your legs in the way you’re most comfortable.  As in all things wood working, there are many ways to complete a project.

I made my chair out of some beautiful kiln dried Black Limba I found at Crosscut lumber.  My leather was from the now out of business Sheraton Leather.  My leather was 8 – 10 thickness.

I used Jason Thigpen’s photos as inspiration from my chair.

Stretchers pre-shaped on the table saw.

You can also shape the octagons with a hand plane.

I found it very helpful to have an example leg to use as a guide. One the first leg is done, I followed it to make the others.

I used my table saw to make stop cuts at transitions. At the top of the leg where the hand grips are formed and above the foot.

For the legs, pencil lines are super helpful.

I used my draw knife between the pencil lines to remove the waste.

Once close to the right shape I used my spoke shave to make the final shape.

Here how I used pencil lines to make sure the shape of the legs where similar. You can make out the pencil shading on the leg at the top of the picture.

I also used the draw knife to shape the feet. I have to admit that I ended up turning the feet on the lathe because I didn’t like how they turned out.

I also started the round over on the top with my drawn knife.

Anne of All Trades giving excellent instruction.

Here are some additional resources that you might find helpful.

Roorkhee chair design

Assemble a Roorkhee Chair

Roorkhee Chair – Popular Woodworking

Now Available: Build a Campaign Chair Video

I don’t own a lathe so, when possible I’ve been going up to Pratt Fine Arts and getting lessons from whomever will teach me .. so it’s going very slowly.  I tried speeding up the stretchers by the octagon method on the table saw, but I’m a serious novice when it comes to turning.

Anne of All Trades giving excellent instruction.

Stretchers pre-shaped on the table saw.

I started wondering if I could use my shave horse and draw knife to move things along.  I spent 6 days in my Windsor chair class shaping spindles so I might be able to pull it off.

Here’s what I did and you can be the judge.  I’ll put up more photos as things progress.  Oh, and by the way, I think this was really Jason Thigpen’s (@txheritage) idea.

First I created stop cuts on the table saw. See far right leg.

Then, after careful lay out and lots of pencil lines, I trimmed with a sharp draw knife.

Trimming to the stop cuts.

Once most of the waste was gone I went to the spoke shaves and did , finally, finish cuts with my small Lee Valley concave spoke shave.

This is me using pencil lines to make sure I even things up.

Then I trimmed the feet the same way.

And finally I made the rounded top with draw knife and rasps. See next picture for work in progress.

More photos to come.