Things are getting easier.

Hand planes are great.
The key is to have a GOOD work surface. If you are doing a lot of pieces that are same size you could make a jig to hold them solid, just lay it in and go.
Just a suggestion…...

-- "My mission in life - make everyone smile !"

canadianchips, I have a 4×4 bench with 3/4” MDF surface screwed to some heavy homemade saw horses which are tied together with 2×4’s. I clamp a couple Jorgensen clamps to one end and use that as a stop or the board I’m planing. The whole thing sets on some carpet which helps to keep it in place, but when I hit a knot, it does move. I’m going to add some weight to the whole thing and put down some double sided tape under the carpet and see if that will keep it in place.

-- Failure does not stop me, it makes me try harder..... because I'm crazy.

Russell, have you tried skewing the plane as you pass over those knots? The slicing action should help to minimize the snag even if it doesn’t eliminate it entirely.

-- Brian in Arlington, TX - Laziness is the foundation of efficiency.

Brian, I’ll keep that in mind. I do need to sharpen the planes a little though, they have been used much.

-- Failure does not stop me, it makes me try harder..... because I'm crazy.

Russel, if you were closer I’d let you use my bench top planers, but to be honest, trying to do custom work without using power tools is an exercise in futility. You can’t produce enough, fast enough to make it worthwhile.

Yeah, I know, I’ll hear about this answer, but the truth is, unless you are making one offs, you need to put a couple of hundred board ft of wood through a planer to make at least one side smooth and usable.

-- Improvise.... Adapt...... Overcome!

Dallas, the wrc has been planed on one side from the mill, the other side isn’t a big deal to hand plane as long as the blade is sharp. I still need to practice my hand planing technique to get by those knots. All told, I spend about one day cutting the shapes, and one day sanding and assembling part of the chair, the seat, the third and fourth day I’m usually in finish mode. I’m sticking with water base finishes to decrease drying time. So about 4 days per chair. Each piece gets two coats of Charles Neil pre color conditioner right after the sanding. I find myself doing a lot of waiting for things to dry.

One thing that does concern me is the consistency of the design. I still haven’t decided on the back slats, whether to curve the back of leave it straight. This one I’m doing at the moment will have a contoured seat, but I’m going with a straight back simply because the back takes too long to design with a contour and I don’t think the contour of the back makes a big difference in the comfort.

The obvious pro’s to a straight back is the ability to make the back on the bench and simply screw it on to the chair when it’s done. The contour back style has to be assembled on the chair using clamps which tend to scar the wrc. Plus I can glue it and screw it from the back side so you don’t see the screws from the front.

-- Failure does not stop me, it makes me try harder..... because I'm crazy.

Once upon a time, about 30 years ago my ex-husband didn’t get paid for a job, so he went to the guys house to collect. The guy had no money- but apparently had been building Adirondack chairs en masse. So- in lieu of cash payment my ex loaded up many pick ups of Adirondack chair materials which included a pile of pre cut parts. I tell you this because… for the back assembly the guy had made a jig. If memory serves me correctly, all we had to do was cut the back pieces throw them on the jig and screw on the horizontal rails. then with a few taps the back slid into the chair bottom- perfectly every time. We ended up making hundreds of those damn chairs and then drove around to campgrounds etc and and sold them along the road for $50 a piece. It was of course a lot of work to get paid for a job that had already been completed, but we had no hope of every getting paid, we were young and energetic and needed the money to pay the rent so we built the chairs. (We built them in the barn) The chairs were sold unfinished- no paint, no stain and we sold every single chair about as fast as we could build them (assembly line style). I have to tell you we never cared to make another one. LOL

-- Homer : "Oh, and how is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain."

Last Saturday the guy in booth beside mine at Farmer Market sells those chairs. He said he quit putting finishes on them. Always same answer, to light, too dark, wrong color. Now he sells them RAW pine. Sells out every week !
Just some info to help.

-- "My mission in life - make everyone smile !"