Chairmaking
I chose the ladderback chairmaking class at John C. Campbell Folk School for a couple of reasons. First of all the timing was right. I needed to use up carry-over vacation days before June 1st. Secondly, I needed to get out of the cabinet shop, where it’s often over 100° during the summer…That’s the cabinet shop at Living History Farms in Urbandale, IA. I volunteer there as a cabinetmaker 2 days a month. Let me tell you, it gets hot inside those buildings.
John Olson, who is in charge of both the cabinet shop and the blacksmith shop at the “Farms” mentioned one time that he had a shave horse and drawknife that he uses on occasion to make chairs. When he explained that he takes the shave horse outside and sets it under a shade tree, especially on really hot days, I knew that was for me! The only problem was, I’d never used a shave horse to make chairs.
That’s where the Folk School came in. I did a search for green wood chairmaking and the Folk School had a class at the right time and the right price. It was also in an area of the country that I’d never visited and it allowed me to stop in Berea, Kentucky on the way down. Berea is the home to a couple of well-known woodworkers, including Kelly Mehler, Warren May, and Brian Boggs. I also wanted to visit the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. The Grove Park Inn is an historic Arts & Crafts-period lodge that’s filled with original Stickley, Roycroft, and Limbert furniture. It’s one of the top resort hotels in the country.
The class itself turned out to be a lot more interesting than I’d hoped. The class was held in the woodworking shop, an old stone building with a large front porch. One section of the shop is filled with Oneway lathes (the lathes will soon be transfered to their own new building) and another small area had 6 or 7 workbenches. All of the shave horses are out on the front porch and this is where we did most of the work on our chairs. First thing Sunday night, right after supper, we got together to sharpen and learn a little more about the tools we’d be using.
Well before the class began, we’d been informed of the tools we’d need to bring ourselves — including a draw knife, a half-round spokeshave and a couple of mortising chisels. We were also told that a few of the tools that the school owned were in short supply, so if we had them, to also bring our sharpening stones, brace and bits, dowel pointer, hollow auger, back saw, mallet, ruler, skewed knife, and flat-bottomed spokeshave.
I already owned most of these tools, but I had no idea what a dowel pointer and hollow auger were. So, I got on ebay and did a little shopping. I managed to find some good deals, and before I knew it I owned enough 1860′s version tools to fill a large tool box. The only thing I didn’t have was the tool box!
So I decided to build one. I used plans for an Heirloom Chest that was published in Workbench magazine. It’s not exactly a true-to-period tool box, but it met my needs, plus it was quick and easy to build.
After learning how to sharpen our draw knives and spokeshaves, we started the week by quartering and riving the Oak logs. If you discard the outer early wood (or sap wood) and the inner pith, a single four-foot length of log provides enough green wood for one chair — if you’re careful. Lyle Wheeler, our instructor, explained that building chairs was easy. “…All you have to do is start with a log, and then cut away all the parts that ain’t a chair.”
Lyle uses only veneer-quality red Oak logs for his chairs. (As he put it, “Life it too short to dance with ugly women.”) Knots and twisting, turning grain can make working with green wood extremely difficult. So it’s best to use 8 to 10 foot logs that have concentric growth rings that are about 1/8″ apart. Luckily, Lyle had already rived most of the parts for our chairs. We actually practiced all day on Monday by building the parts for a couple of foot stools that will be auctioned off in August.
Once you’ve rived the parts for your chairs, you’ll end up with enough rough stock (billets) for 3 long and eight short rungs, two front posts, and two back posts. All of the billets are square, except for the four top rungs which are rectangular shaped.
The next step is to make the rung billets round. Well, actually the next step is to make them “octagonal,” or eight sided. We used the draw knife to do this. Once you have it octagonal shaped, you take it down one more time by making a sixteen-sided (deca-hexagonal!) billet. Then they’re shaved into round using a half-round spokeshave. This handy tool has a concave-shaped blade for easy shaving of round stock. As long as you’re not shaving against the grain, it’s pretty simple to make a round piece of wood. The secret is to not over-do it and to keep rotating the billet in the shave horse. Remember, you want a round billet, not one that’s oval.
The gallery has some good shots of some of the shaving process. That’s Lyle in the bib overalls. Oh, and that’s me with my finished chair. I’m looking forward to setting up my shave horse underneath a shade tree out at the Farm.
More next week, Joel
Geoff Butler said,
I have been asked to reweave a number of Paris Bistro chairs I would like to know where I can get the plastic flat/oval material used to weave the seats and backs. Can anyone help
(posted on July 12th, 2009 at 3:13 pm)