Am considering making a copy of a contemporary settee I saw in a model home near Phoenix. It was done in zebrawood, which I thought was a little extreme. What species might look better, and most of all, how would one do the circular crest rail. The one on the original was segmented into two or even three pieces.

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Zebrawood looks fine to me. Asking for help to knock off another furniture maker's design seems a bit bold to me. But then Michael Thonet beat most everyone to that type of rail.

For the crest rail I would do a long exposed tenon for strength. When cutting out the curve, leave a flat/square section to cut your joinery off of. On the seat joint to the vertical leg , I would have more dovetails showing. What wood to use is personal preference.

I just finished something similar and I joined it in segments using double open tenons.

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Thanks. I thought about laminating a two-sweep sandwich, the pieces sweeping 30 degrees, the lap half, or 15. West System for the glue.

Be nice if I could fine stock from a bend in the bole.

This is for a gift, not a commission. Will try things out by doing a prototype in SPF using $25 worth of 2x4s from the BORG.

And I did add more dovetails in my 3D model.

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That should work well, but it's a lot of exposed joints and glue lines.

Another way to approach this would be a bent laminate glue-up. Keep the pieces in sequence, use UF glue, and then get out the spokeshave, rasp and scraper to bring it to final shape.

I am with Howard - a bent wood lamination is the way to go,

Whatever you do, do not use PVA glue - the joints will creep.

In the past when I did that kind of work I used Resorcinal - it dries rock hard.

One method would be steam bent so as to give continuous grain for strength and appearance. Like Thonet, this may take some effort and experimentation. Will Zebrasood bend with steam? Steam is the traditional solution, though not universal.

Another solution would be bent lamination, keeping the plies matched so as to produce a rail that is still attractive and strong.

I think the chair in the photo has a design derivative of the classic Chinese chair. Some of those had a complex interlocking joint that used the center back splat as a spline that locked the joint into place.

That bench has a strong japanese influence. Steam bending zebrawood or other exotics is questionable at best. I would research japanese joinery and go that route. Built up by brick construction will look poor in my opinion. A long tenon will be adequate combined with the tenon splat.

There are not that many woods that steam well. While I have not tried steaming with zebrawood, my hunch is this will not work. I don't think the grain structure will support this.

There is no way that is a glue up lamination. look at the grain. It was bent from a solid piece IMO.

It's three segments. If you look closely you can see the joints.

Yes, the crest rail I saw and photographed was segmented, but I cannot say for sure it was in three segments. Two, for sure.

Looked at some zebrawood when at Austin (Denver) today and what they have looks exactly as all the stock in that settee. At their pricing, there is about $325 cost in stock for the project.

All theirs is kiln dried, which means some other source would need to be found for the curved rail, if steaming.

Mean time, just for fun, I'll try making up the rail by bricking it up from pieces cut from a doug fir 2x4.

I see it now. Didn't look at the top photo. Pretty cool piece.

Great looking piece. If I were making this out of a wood that wasn't so "busy" then I'd do a bent lamination. If I was going with spalted maple or zebra wood then I'd go with a tenon. Those dovetails for real or are they some sort of spline? Grain doesn't seem to match??

I believe the dovetails are real. I built my Sketchup model with six pins, while the one I saw has four.

If you examine the pics, you can see how the builder either cut a chamfer or a hollow across that joint's edge, which makes sense, when you see the joint apart. Those knife edges are delicate.

Back to the crest rail. The more I look at the photos the more I think the rail is not zebrawood, but something else. Something that either can bend more readily that zebra, or lent itself to a lamination buildup with less grain definition.

It is almost pure creamy color, with some brown streaking. I have seen northern maple with that kind of streakiness. We called it "brown" maple.

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