The year of The Book

This year has been a good year of book buying for me. I have tried to expand my chair book selection and I think I just about got it. It started earlier this year with the wonderful book by Peter Galbert "The Chairmakers Notebook". 

This is the best book on Woodworking let alone chairmaking I have ever read.

 Just recently I bought a few more that I feel are really worth the read.

Chair:

 The current state of the art, with the who, the why, and the what of it  By Peter Bradford

Chairs By Judith Miller 

 Judith Miller also wrote the book on furniture, literally. If you ever want a comprehensive book on furniture her book would be it.

Chairs: A History By Florence de Dampierre

I have many books just solely about chairs and it might be a bit obsessive, but hey I am a chairmaker and there are worse things I could be obsessed with.

 I would say that woodworking is my healthy obsession.

I decided about 15 years ago to study woodworking in depth, in particular chairmaking. I have come a long way and this year acquiring these books has been helpful. 

I am not sure how interesting this blog will be to the average person other than to show I am batty about chairs, I guess that might be a good thing. There are many other books I have and a few I don't, contact me for a good list if you would like to know more.

Drawing in Perspective

  

                                                                                                                                    

You don't have to be an artist to be a woodworker, but a good foundation in perspective drawing can come in very helpful. I have the fortunate history of many art classes to pull from and I am often asked by clients to draw up a design that I have proposed. Being able to draw a design that will eventually resemble the piece you plan to build can make the process easier. I am a firm believer that a woodworker should always keep a journal of design ideas nearby to sketch out any ideas you can come up with. 

Perspective drawing will help immensely  when you have drawn out a shape you like and want to enlarge it to full size to be used as a blueprint. Without this you could be just guessing when it comes to production.

 The chair shown above was a miniature that was done in reverse where the full size drawing was done first and the reduction was done second. Using my sketch book I was able to make both plans using perspective drawing.
Sheraton, Chippendale, Hepplewhite all used perspective drawings to portray their furnishings in their books.

Knowing 1 point and 2 point perspective drawing is a valuable skill to have. It is used by architects and builders to draw up plans for buildings and can help alleviate the surprises that pop up when you are working out a piece of furniture. The 2 point perspective gives a view from an angle of the work.

This is a rough sketch that I did for a client of a bench I was contracted to build. It is done in the 2 point perspective and is helpful because you can see the piece in three planes at once. If you want to have three separate figures to work from try this trick to work up a blueprint.

1.  Draw up your piece from the front angle with height measurements needed.

2.  extend the horizontal lines to the right and using your depth measurements and angles draw in your side view. Above the first object draw a 45 degree angle from lower right to upper left. Take any vertical lines and carry them straight upward to the angle.

3. Now take the vertical lines drawn on the right image and extend them upward as you did with the first image. Use the intersecting lines from the 45 degree angle to deflect to the right and you can work up your overhead view.

You can use this to mark out joinery and make your patterns.

If you draw up your piece using the 2 point perspective and the blueprint view you can make a miniature or mock up of the piece to be made. Using these you can see your work from many different views and address any concerns before you have begun to use the good materials.

Using perspective drawing can make life easier.

Graduation of the masters students

While up in Portland for some much needed R&R I had the chance to drop by Gary's shop for the graduation of his masters students. My personal favorite piece was a drafting table made by Student Ben Wu. It was a very ingenious design made in Walnut, Sweet Cherry and Hickory. His joinery was well done and the desktop raises to become the drafting surface. The pen rest is held in place with magnets and can be removed if in the way. The legs are an homage to the famous Nakashima cantilevered chair.

Another order done

The oil stains in the driveway add a lot. My shop is really to small to shoot this order inside.

This Order goes to an IPIC dining movie theater in Houston Texas. It was a fun order to fill, I had to design a set of chairs that went with my bar stools and I feel they turned out nicely.

Now on to something else.

tool box

TOOL BOX

I have always had the luxury of working solely in my shop and have not needed to take any tools out to woodwork elsewhere. Recently I had the opportunity to take a class from Gary Rogowski in Portland, Oregon. I needed to bring some tools with me for the class and rather than throw them in a backpack I decided to make myself a toolbox.

 It has four trays for tools that can be removed, two on the top and two that slide out from either side.

 The handle pivots to lock the lower two in place so as not to fly out during transport.

 The upper tray can hold up to three Stanley #5s so there is lots of room for goodies.

 The upper trays nest in above and then some straps attached to the sides hold a saw bag in place.

It has served me well and I continue to use it in the shop until my tool cabinet is done later this next year. Stay tuned for that build.

First Class

First Class

After 15 years of designing and building chairs I thought it would be fun to take a class on the subject to get a feel for where I needed improvement and where I was with the whole thing. I took a three day class in Portland at the Northwest Woodworking School with legendary Gary Rogowski.

The class was very fun and it gave me a chance to work on a design I had been saving for a while.

I got to sit in many different styles of chairs, Wegner, Boggs and Gary's own cafe chair, so I was all smiles. Mr. Rogowski is a great teacher and I recommend a class to anyone who would like to learn about woodworking. 

Among his devises to aid in chair construction there was this contraption that used dowels to mimic a backrest and proved very useful, while the data was difficult to transfer to my design. Once I figured out how to use the numbers I got from the jig it went well.

For my design I chose to work on a dining chair design I had drawn up about two years ago.

The second day of class we built a prototype of the design using pine sub-flooring from an old bowling alley. 

 The last day in class I used some sapele or khaya(I couldn't tell) to make a miniature.

All in all I thought it was a fun class. I look forward to completing the finished chair and I will post pictures of it when I do.

If you are interested in woodworking and want to learn from one of the greats, then I suggest taking a class with Mr. Rogowski, well worth it!

Designing something new

Designing Something New

With my latest contract I was asked to make 8 of my Walnut bar stools with metal foot pads and 8 chairs to go with them for an IPIC theater in Texas. If you don't know what an IPIC theater is, it's a restaurant-slash-movie theater. The lobby serves as a restaurant with full bar to fill you up and then off to the movie lounging in large armchair recliners. I bet they even use real butter in the popcorn. I had no idea going to the movie theater could be so opulent.

There was a slight problem with the order, I had not designed any chairs to go with the bar stools. 

So I was tasked with a new design to complete the order.

It starts with a drawing. 

The photo above is a rendering of the chair to be made. Once approved I had to figure out how to make it. 

I like to draw up full sized blue prints, it helps when making patterns. I can get my angles and heights correct.
                        

I then build a mock up in pine or cedar to test the sit of the chair. With this design I ended up moving the front legs in and attaching them similar to a Windsor chair, with a through tenon with wedge. I like the back leg of this design, but I wanted to do something new. I have been toying around with tapered lamination's and I thought this would be a great vehicle to test it out on. 

I built a form with the front profile of the back leg fut out. I run about 16 1/8" slats through my sander with a sled to give them a taper, then dry clamp them to the form and trace out the back of the leg on the corresponding part of the form.
                   

Next was the back rest.. I usually cooper the bar stools to accommodate the tenons that rest in the seat, but there was no need for that here so I built another beast of a form to use bent lamination again for the back rest. The rest will sit against the back legs and be screwed or doweled in place.

The seat is going to be a fully sculpted 2" thick slab, which is a bit overkill for a cafe style dining chair, but I think it will play well off the luxurious atmosphere they are to be housed in. 

Designing a chair is a simple process, but it takes patience and tinkering until you get what you want. These chairs would not have come about without the request, but I am glad that I made them as I think they will be well received. I look forward to making many more of them. I intend to try a few with upholstered seat as well.

It took about a week and a half to fine tune the design for the chair, which is a bit mad considering I am on a deadline, but it was worth it.

For me the design experience is the most fun part of what I do and every time a new piece is thought up it turns into a journey of tweaking the design a little bit every time a run is made until I can't think of anything I want to do different. 

I think these chairs will be one of my favorites.