Making a Schwarz "Short Back" Chair, Part 2

Last time I wrote about the legs and seat.  Still much to do with them, but this post is about the sticks.  This chair will have 12 sticks - 6 long and 6 short.  I'm using red oak that I got from a neighbor's kitchen remodel.  I looked for pieces that had straight grain along the edge and cut on the face along the grain direction to get pieces that followed the grain fairly well.

Note the slanted direction of the grain.  There's a pencil line along one of the grain lines.
I cut along those lines to get straight grain pieces.

Some reasonably straight-grained pieces squared up to 3/4"

Here's a stick sitting in a cradle waiting to be planed.
Lines are drawn on the sides to plane down to.

Planed to the lines to make them octagonal

Then take off the corners with three scrub plane strokes
to make them almost round

The short sticks will get 5/8" tenons on each end, so I put them through the rounding plane that I made a few months ago.  I did a test run first with a test piece and that was a good idea because the tenon came out at an angle from the rest of the stick.  For that test piece, I clamped the stick upright in a vise and turned the rounding plane onto it.  I found that I really need to put the rounder in the vise and turn the stick into it, concentrating on keeping the stick in the center of the rounder's entrance.

Taking a long stick to 5/8" diameter.  If I started the rounding plane this way,
the end of the stick might be angled.  I had to start the sticks as shown below.

The test stick (above) has an angled tenon.
The one below is nicely centered.

Rounder in the vise, stick being rotated into it.

I can see whether or not the stick is centered in the opening.

Turning a long stick into the rounder, concentrating on
keeping it centered in the opening

Here's a close-up, where I can see the even gap all around the stick entering the rounder

The sticks were to have a small bulge, centered between the arm and the seat.  After rounding the tenons of the short sticks, I used a scrub plane, then a block plane, scraper and sandpaper to smooth the curves.

Here's the short sticks (and one long stick) shaped

Tapering the bulge with a scrub, followed by block plane,
being very careful not to go into the tenon area

A curved scraper removes most of the remaining facets

Later I'll taper the long sticks above the arm from 5/8" to 1/2".  So far, this has been the easiest and most fun part of the project.  I've run into issues with making the arm bow and boring the holes through the arm and into the seat.  But that's a story for another post.