Shaper Origin #1: Chair Seat

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This is part 1 in a 1 part series: Shaper Origin

  1. Chair Seat

The neighbor restores furniture and sells it at fairs. She picked up some ratty rattan chairs where the webbing was gone.

I said I could make her a chair seat to replace the webbbing. We settled on 1/2” thickness, I picked up some plywood and went to cut the seat at 14-7/8” diameter.

Thought I could get off easy by using the MilesCraft jig with a trim router. Nope. The jig maxes out at 12” circles. Even if you use the jig “incorrectly” by flipping the arm around to, you cannot make a 14-7/8” hole.

Out came the Shaper Origin.

My benches (both of them) are filled with crap right now. So I slapped a piece of 3/8” radiata ply on the ground, threw a piece of 3/4” ply on top of that, threw some rubber drawer liner atop that before finally throwing my material down.

I then grabbed a kneeler because I am old, and kneeling on the ground sucks.



I put the Shaper Tape on until the health indicator of the router stays in the black (not the red) while doing an air cut trial pass.


Then we get to cutting before the sun goes down on me. Had to get it done by Friday (yesterday; and I did this all yesterday) because neighbor wanted to sell the chairs at the market today.



I cut it down to 1/2” - 1/32” to create an onion skin at 0” offset to the desired diameter (14-7/8”).


Then for the last pass, still at 0” offset, I set depth to 1/2” + 1/32” to break through. I made sure I had the kneeler and my body weight on the circle when I did break through so it would not go anywhere. Also, before I plunged into the last pass, I made sure to move the rubber drawer liner under my material further back so it was not in the cut path.



Because I did not use any tape, nor any tabs to support the work through the final cut, retrieving the final part was as simple as standing up




Nice job Devin! When I make a cut that leaves a thin skin, I just use a utility knife and then clean the edges with a sanding block.
totally lost !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!😞

working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.

it’s ok pottz; just enjoy the pretty circle
Steve, that would have prevented me from having to cut into the board beneath my material.

Since this is for a chair seat that will receive padding and fabric (meaning nobody will ever see it), I absolutely could have done what you suggest.

I will give that a shot next time; save the spoilboard
Nice onion skin! I keep sections of junk plywood and hardboard around just so I have spoilboard for any sized project. I tried to cut out some pieces as Steve suggested early on and ended up with some tear out…I think I left the skin a bit thick. Also, unless I’ve milled it to exact thickness, or it’s good quality ply, there’s always a little variance to the work piece thickness from point to point, which ends up giving me a variable thickness onion skin. I’m too impatient to dial it down, pass after pass, so I just use a sharp bit and go all the way into the spoilboard!

Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".

I think that Pottz was distracted by the poor puppy with cone of shame and he stopped reading.  

Does the Shaper have the ability in the software to add tabs to a profile cut to hold the piece in place as you cut through?  

--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.

Inkscape has a tool that can very quickly embed tabs into a cut path, but honestly it may just be easier to manually retract where you want a tab, move a little ahead of where you stopped, and then plunge back into your cut path. This of course would be after clearing out all the material above the skin.