Upholstered Frame work

Here is how I make the frames for my upholstered chairs. It's mortised and tenoned at the critical joints, the seat and arm rails to the legs and the crest rail to the back legs, these joints take the most abuse so I think they need added strength, but I also use pocket screws to lock in the wings and pull thru areas ( the areas not taking such a beating over time). I have tested the strength of this method and have been very convinced it will hold up for more years than I will be around. I paint the legs with Milk Paint before the chair gets any fabric. If anyone is looking to make an upholstered chair there's alot of things an upholster needs for him to cover the piece. Once I finally figured out how to make everything for this chair (which by the way, was off of a photo with the chair covered in fabric, not easy to do), I made my patterns and came up with what I thought was a pretty good proportioned looking chair. Of course when it's covered, the cotton batting and all the fluff makes it seem a bit smaller but you still have plenty of room and I do have to say these chairs are extremely comfy.

Mortise and Tenon Router jig

To make the many angled mortise and tenon joints for my upholetered furniture, I made this jig used with a plunge router. It can bevel to any angle up to about 10 degrees and even make a compound mortise if need be. I didn't want tospend the money to buy a Leight FMT jig $500 so I made one based off of it with scraps laying around the shop and a few toggle clamps. I made if for maybe $50. I can make a template to do a tenon in the end of the piece, however, I think a loose tenon is easier and so I have never got around to make the new template.

                          It's a pretty crude looking jig but it works great and is pretty simple to set up.

 This shows the cross hairs that you use to set up the mortise position. I mark a center line on the work piece where I want the mortise and move the cross hairs to to line up with that. Set my length of the mortise with a couple of stop blocks and rout the depth I need. Works really good for those difficult to make angled mortise and tenons.

The tenon shown here is just a piece ripped on the tables saw and then planed to thickness, in this case 3/8".

Without any glue this make for a strong joint that will hold these pieces of furniture together. Once the glue is put in it will be here long after I'm gone.

Upholstered Pieces

I have began to make upholstered furniture, kind of in the same style of the 18th and 19th century work I normally do. I have never really seen how upholstered frames go together so I build all mine with mortise and tenon joints, later finding out most frames made by companies are done with dowel construction which apparently is strong enough, so a mortise and tenon would be even better and much stronger. I use a basic fabric of Osnaburg for everything to have the look of a period piece. The webbing in the seat make for very comfortable furniture. I also use cotton batting to give a fluffy and less modern feel. I am going to make one when I have time for my house so I can put it through a durability test of my own.