The cloud lifts seen on the rear legs of chairs I recently made
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The interior cloud lifts on the rear legs are shaped using both power tools and hand tools. However, after performing this operation, I realized that the use of a rotary tool may have made my work a lot easier. I’ll discuss that later. First, let me explain how I manufactured this detail.
I first traced the outline of the cloud lift using a 1/4” MDF template. The 1/4” MDF is flexible making it easier to contour the template to the arc of the rear leg as I trace the outline.
To make sure the thickness of the top of the rear leg is precise and consistent on all 16 chair legs, I made the initial cut on the table saw.
However, I had to make a “stopped cut” and avoid the blade from cutting into the curved portion of the cloud lift. I did this by placing a piece of blue painters tape just ahead of the front of the table saw blade.
I completed this cut on the bandsaw. This was a rough cut and would be refined with a block place, rasp, and sandpaper.
The block plane smooths the rough cut from the bandsaw to the more precise smother cut from the table saw.
The rasp continued to smooth out the transition from the cloud lift to flat cut made by the table saw. Hand sanding finished this transition.
The completed interior cloud lift should match nicely with the cloud lift on the front face of the rear leg.
The interior cloud lift adds a beautiful detail to an Arts & Crafts style chair.
A flexible shaft rotary tool by Ryobi could have made shaping the interior cloud lift much simpler.
Using the rasps left surface of the interior cloud lift somewhat rough. Therefore, a significant amount of hand sanding had to be done to remove the marks left by the rasp. Shortly after completed all of the cloud lifts on the 16 rear chair legs, I received the Ryobi 18-Volt ONE+ Cordless Rotary Tool. This would have been the perfect tool to smooth out the transition from cloud lift to the straight portion of the rear leg.
The Ryobi cordless rotary tool uses a Ryobi One+ 18-volt battery to power the 36 in. flexible shaft tool. The rotary tool has a 1/8” collet and comes with 33 different sanding, grinding, cutting, and polishing accessories. The 3/8” sanding wheel would have been perfect to sanding away the rough marks left by the rasps. In fact, I practiced on my old prototype leg just to see what kind of a finish I would have gotten if I had gotten the tool early enough to use.
The Ryobi rotary tool would have been perfect to shape some fine detail work on the chairs.