I was commissioned to build 5 chairs to match a set of George III period chairs a few years ago. I needed to make the chairs using traditional joinery, copy the carving and match the finish. I often refer to them as the Prince of Wales chairs because of the distinctive Prince of Wales plume carved on the splat. It's a common decorative motif of the period and was used in different applications (above mirrors for example). I've seen one or two versions of this model of chair in auction catalogues over the past 20 years. I like to make a set of chairs from the same board when ever possible for consistency of color and grain. I often make an extra chair if I can to work out details and I either offer it to the client (for sale) or keep it. They usually buy the extra one. I'll show some of the stages of construction with descriptions below.
These are the front leg blanks with mortises cut and the depth cut for the fillet detail on the spade foot
After tapering the legs I use a cutting guage to mark the recessed field of the legs.
I use a gouge and various hand tools to flatten the recessed field and define the beads at the edges of the legs.
I'm nesting the rear posts for the chairs out of a single 8/4 piece of genuine mahogany. The plywood template was made from my drawings.
I lay out the chair posts left and right essentially bookmatching them at the top of the post closest to your eye to maximize the symmetry of the posts on the finished chairs.
Fairing the rear posts with a spokeshave.
Glueing up the rear seat rail and the bottom of the splat.
The mortise and tenon joint that connects the rear posts to the crestrail.
I'm using a spokeshave to form the curved board that I will use to cut the various parts of the splat.
A process shot of carving the Prince of Wales plume. I have cut the recessed field on the crestrail and carved the reeded area on the center element. I left some wood to provide strength while carving the plume.
Carving getting closer but the center "stem" on the left needs to be thinned down and tightened up among other things.
Finished carving detail.
My chair and an original.