Curved chair back rungs cut from solid wood

In this article I showed how to bend the wood to make curved ciar back rungs by bending oak in a kitchen oven.

The other alternative is to cut them out of a piece of solid wood.

But before cutting the curve with a bandsaw, it's important to cut the tenons on the end while the piece is still straight.


Here I'm using the pantorouter to cut the tenon. I already had it set up for that when I cut the tenons on the ends of the curved pieces. But with the workpiece still a straight piece, a tenon jig would work as well.


After that, cutting out the curve on both sides. Most of the wood ends up as scrap.


It can take quite a bit of sanding to smooth out the bandsaw cut, especially if it's a little bit wavy.


It's easier to get the convex back side smooth by using the flat part of the belt sander.


Cutting a the corners off the ends, mostly for looks.


Thse corners just happened to be the diameter of the smaller roller on my belt sander, so I was able to smooth them nicely. I also bevelled the edge that way.


Finally, adding a 1/4" roundover to the top and bottom edges with a router table. I added this extension to the fence on my router table to help guide the piece vertical as I routed the edges.

And that's all there's do it. This shape is easier to make than the tapered rungs style shape that my dad's mostly used for back rungs on his chairs.


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