I went & helped my friend out bc he got screwed by his electric company again. Apparently they got bought out and reneged on a longtime deal he had where he could make partial payments instead of paying it all at once. Under the new management they refused to accept & said he had to pay in full within 10 days or he'd have his electricity cut off-- and we've been getting temps down in the 30s already. He's super stressed w/ the bills on top of some relationship issues that I won't get into.
His power bill has been high because he's got some electrical problems in his circuit box & needs to replace the box & everything in it. He's got a whole-house shutoff outside he can use when he switches over & he's worked on boxes like that before. We just need to find one that will fit.
We also went for early voting. It's right next to the courthouse so it's easy to find & has a parking lot with handicap spots. Our regular voting place is way out in the middle of nowhere with no sidewalks, no real parking spots, no street lights, & it's a total pita to find. My friend was supposed to go with us but he had stuff he needed to take care of at home. We got him a Popeyes chicken sandwich on our way back into town.
I just ate some grilled chicken sandwiches & am ready for a nap-- I'm always tired after I eat.
As an aside, I've been thinking about how my friend wants to add a little eating-nook to his kitchen & the dining room chairs for sale all suck and/or are too expensive so I've been looking at online plans for chairs. Ana-White has a nice
farmhouse chair that is fairly easy to make-- has a full cut list showing how to get the best use of materials. I think I would make some modifications & have the rails/supports look more like
a chair Paul Sellers made with a tapered seat, curved rails, and mortise & tenon joints instead of pocket screws. I also would use the rail positions Paul Sellers used. He has a 4" top rail all around the seat. On the front it looks like he has about a 3" gap & 2" rail (so a total of 9"). On the sides it looks like a total of 13" to the bottom of the lower side rail. My friend is good at upholstering so he can upholster the seat. Ana's plans call for a 4" cushion but other sites have suggested 2". Sometime this week I'm thinking of looking at my scrap lumber & sketching out some of the parts on the wood to see how things would fit. I'd have to use wider boards for some of the angled pieces to get the tenon right.
I'm trying to decide if I should make the seat at the back narrower than the farmhouse plans or make the front wider. Right now the plans call for 19"W x 20"D for the seat.
Another chair plan showed a 95° angle from the inside at the back of the seat to the side & 85° at the front. The rear leg slopes so that the lower side rails would have to be cut at 10°. I just have to play around to figure out how to angle the tenon properly to be straight into the mortise (apparently its easier to angle the tenon than to angle the mortise). I don't know what the angle is for the way the chair back leans. Paul Sellers said no more than 7° and no less than 5° is a comfortable slope. He also cut 1/2" off the bottom of the back legs so the seat tips back a tad-- I need to figure out how to do the math to determine the angle I would need to cut to make the feet sit flat. He has plans & videos on making the chair but you have to pay for membership to see it.
I wish I could remember my math skills from college 20 years ago that explained how to figure out the angles of things. The chair that had the 95° for the seat taper had a 19-1/4" front and 16-5/8" back. I think I would have less of a taper to keep the seat wider at the back. Either go from 18 at the back to 20 at the front or 19 at the back & 20 at the front. The less of a taper the smaller the angle for the tenon.
And I'm yawning & barely keeping my eyes open so it's naptime.
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