Fan back

With destruction comes renovation

Wally Lamb

Here are some professional pics I had done a while back.  I am slowly building my website back up from these pics and others.  The link is at the bottom.  And two pics down is the side view of a rocker that went to Rockland, Maine.  The color is black and Lexington green mixed together over mustard yellow.  I also have a similar chair at a gallery in Portland, Maine.

This seat is for a Nantucket fan back that I recently sold.  I don't build a lot of fanbacks and I can't remember the last oval seat I did.  The oval seat are typically seen on fan backs, sack backs and some comb backs.  They are easier to carve as the grain runs (typically) left to right and the seat lacks the coves on the side.  This one has a tail piece that will house two additional spindles. I'm not a huge fan of tail spindles.  Structurally they do little if anything for the chair and visually I don't like how they break up the back.  But some customers like them and it's an order so I'm more than willing to do it.

Here you can see the side view.  I'll get better pics as the chair progresses but I was thinking when I first started building I would by all my turnings.  Over the years I have gotten to the point where I can now do all my own turnings. Point is these are very complicated turnings so it reminds me how far I have come over the years.

C-Arm Jig

A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them, they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship

Rainer Maria Rilke

Here you can see the C-arm chair and it's corresponding bent arm.  The arm rail is tricky to bend as the plane rotates as it approaches the hands.  It is thinned down ( I use a drawknife and clean it up with a spoke shave ) from 7/8 to 1/2 inch at the elbows but still it is a tricky bend.  I tends to fail at the elbows...roughly where the 1st and 2nd spindle are located above, on the right. 

I used to bend it around the top of the jig and then bring it down and clamp one end then I would move to the other end and usually by that time the other had cooled too much and either the piece would have some compression failure or it would out right break.  Now what I do is I bend the top and wedge it and bring both ends down simultaneously and simply hold them in place for a time, maybe a minute.  Then I release them and clamp them.  I find that once they are bent they can be re bent so long as they are bent hot.  If  you allow them to cool they will sometimes fail.

 I've also started just using the PVC pipe to heat most of my bends.  It is wrapped in an old moving blanket which keeps the chamber temp around 208 which is pretty hot for a non pressurized system.  I use grippy gloves too, which allow me to handle the pieces faster.

And because the arms fail sometimes, I always prep more pieces than I need.  With the last chairs I prepped 4 pieces for 2 chairs.  The pieces bent beautifully and so I had four bent pieces whcih is good. The problem is if I leave them laying around the arms will eventually relax and flatten out rendering the pieces useless so I came up with this little holding device that will hold the arms at the correct angle and also hold the hands at the correct distance apart.  It's just a couple pieces of scraps and a couple angled pieces.
I used to spend an obscene amount and at the risk of editorializing, my advice is beware of fancy jigs. I only use about four jigs in my day to day chair building business.  Most sre pretty simple affairs assembled on the fly like this one.  The siren song of the magic jig can be alluring.  I know.  But usually it is born out of frustration at lack of skills

Dry Bones

When you are old, I want you to recall these few hours. I want your 

dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them

Gustave Flaubert 

Above are a few shots of a pair of rockers that recently went to Boston. Pretty happy with the way they turned out. Next up are two C-arms and of course their bends.

On most all bends I make extras, in case one breaks I can just keep going,  And for all my bends I have at least two forms so I make doubles even if I'm only making a single chair. The extra time to prep extra pieces is minimal and it really pays off in less down time.

Usually this isn't a big deal with bends that go in one plane. After the bend has cooled a bit I clamp a board across where the hands are going to be and bend the next piece. However, with a C-arm, the bend is multi plane so I have to keep the hands from spreading AND keep the bend a the elbow at the correct angle.

So I came up with this super simple fixture to hold the hands and back at the correct distance and also it holds the back from opening,  So like in these two chairs, all four pieces bent beautifully so I have two arms drying on the fixtures and I'll leave two on the forms.  I have to say I've never had C-arms bend as easily as these did. I now wear grippy gloves which helps and I also just bend the piece around and down without clamping or pegging, I hold it in place for maybe a minute and then release it and clamp and peg it in place, This really does seem to make a difference.

And here is a book I picked up for a dear friend at a used book store in Rockland, Maine that smelled like heaven.

Turning Point

Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt the truth a liar;

But never doubt I love

Shakespeare, Hamlet

Well I'm back. After too long in the wasteland, to quote James McMurtry.  I saw that my last post was last August, which sound about right. I did a demo show last fall, a cool day, and just a few weeks ago decided to get back at it.  It honestly felt like it was time to keep building or let it go. The blog, the whole thing.  I was pleasantly surprised my skills haven't eroded at all, which I was worried about.

Above you can see where I'm going; and below where it all starts. It's been too long. I took a job to pay bills, soldered thru the winter and quit the job. I've perfected the poached egg.  I have become a student of yoga.  I have met some wonderful people and gained some wonderful friends. I guess you could say half measures availed me nothing, I stood at the turning point. I made a decision and right or wrong it's the decision I made.  I've been reading a lot of Wayne Dyer and Thic Naht Hahn.  I've found spirituality and started to meditate.

Here you can see two beautiful ash logs and of course my buddy Forrest. He is glad the winter is over too.

Beautiful logs. This is the first time these logs have seen the sun.  I feel like that too in some ways.

Loaded up and headed Back home For supper.  Stick around, share in my journey.