Kids' Table and Chairs - Planning the chair assembly

In my previous blog posts I vented my frustration with the shaping of the rear legs. Additionally, I gushed about the online woodworking community and the helpful guidance I received. I applied the advice that best fit my skills and tools and ended up with some nice looking legs. Eight out of eighteen isn't too bad, right?

Before... a torn out mess

After... butta

So now I am in the middle of sanding, prior to assembly. The drone of the sander and vacuum leaves me with my thoughts of what steps are next. I think the most logical order is to join the sides, back to front. This includes the apron below the seat and the stretcher between the lower part of the legs. I left the stretchers long knowing that I would cut their length after fitting the apron.

This pics makes the legs look long compared to the back.
It's just the angle I took the picture at.

Joining the two sides together is going to be a bit more challenging. The back panel, rear and front aprons will all have to be cut to exactly the same length to avoid any gaps in the joinery. And speaking of the joinery, I wish I had attempted mortise and tenons. The dowels are ok at best, but I don't know how well they will stand up to the abuse I am sure the boys will put them through.

With the frame of the chair assembled I will custom fit each seat. I made the seat panels a bit large so that I could trim them to a comfortable proportion. They'll be notched in the rear corners to fit around the rear legs and then tapered from front to back. The taper will mate with the front, outside edge of the rear legs and then slightly overhanging the front corners. The taper will be cut on the band saw and sweetened by hand plane.

I've got plenty more sanding to do, some fifty plus pieces for four chars, most of them long and thin. I've been procrastinating and my sore back has been all the excuse I need. Some night soon I'll load up on Advil and finish it up. I bet ear buds will fit comfortably under my ear muffs.

I'll post some assembly pics once I get that far. Until then, thanks for reading!

Jim

PS - Part of the reason (a relatively small part) there has been so much time between updates is my frustration with Blogger and how it handles pictures in a post. To get the two pics above to be side by side I had to add them via the HTML tab and then manually edit their dimensions. It shouldn't take that much effort. I recently tinkered with Wordpress knowing their editor is somewhat easier to use but found their free blog option to be too restrictive in their widgets and themes. I'll stay with Blogger for now, but will be keeping an eye out for improvements in the free Wordpress.com blog features. If anyone has any other free blog suggestions, I'm all ears.