A Different Way to Bend

"There's no room in here!"

Wayne Burby

The quote is from a great old guy I used to work with who was always griping at the mill that there wasn't any room.  He was a funny, sweet guy and honestly he was right; often times there wasn't enough room.  His saying has sorta turned into my own joke when I find myself tripping over stuff or looking for too long for things that I JUST PUT RIGHT THERE!!!

I recently went on a cleaning spree and tossed pieces of wood and took stuff to the salvation army in order to have a common area where all my patterns, papers and forms can go in a somewhat logical way. 

The picture above shows a bench I'm building for a client and while I have wanted to build this for awhile, the prospect of 14 bending forms and the subsequent 28 clamps was a bit much, but the book also had this board that had holes drilled in and pegs, sorta like my own little Plinko board. 

Here's a better shot below.  The turned and steamed pieces, Maple in this case, are threaded thru the pegs and thus held in the right bend for a few day in the kiln, then taken out done.  The best part is the they can be stacked two high, seven wide so I can do all 14 on this one 2x16x 20 piece!

And here's the first one steamed and bent.  The thin piece of wood prevent denting.  I finish turned the tenons top and bottom before steaming and while I seriously doubt the sizes to hold, it would sure be nice if they did.  I turn my tenons on the lathe but once they are bent I can't so I'd have to size them by hand.  Not a huge deal but much faster on the lathe.

Another thing I've recently tried and it works is doubling the slats for my rockers and then doubling them again between the clamps.  I used to do these one at a time, and man dragging those clamps around was a pain.  But now I can do four with just two clamps.  The Irwin clamp pulls the middle together, and the K-bodies finish the clamp and hold it in place.  So for one chair I went from seven forms and 14 clamps to 4 forms and 4 clamps. 

Sadly Wayne isn't around anymore, but I did laugh to myself thinking of Wayne and his comments about room.  I think he would approve.

Fast Logs

“Tell him yes. Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.” 
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Hopefully my first and last post ever using my phone but I dropped and broke my laptop and got another one I hate so until I get a new one..guess I'm stuck with this. And I have have no idea how to turn off the underline.   At any rate, I picked up some gorgeous logs today.  They had a lot of logs in their yard today so I picked a good day.

As I said they had a lot of logs to chose from so I got a couple of really nice ones.  Just a few thoughts on what I look for.

I like watching Roy Underhill and he said something awhile back something  that I have been thinking about and I have determined he is right.   I used to buy fast growing ash logs with wide growth rings because they are simply easier to work with a drawknife, that is to say the lines are easier to see and follow.  I never really thought too much about it being stronger. The common folk lore is that slow growing trees are stronger.

Well, Roy's claim is dead on. Fast growing ring porous wood is stronger. The growth bands seen in a fast growing tree have much more solid wood and less honeycomb late wood..as a result there is more solid wood and less honey comb wood structure.  While slow growing wood with more rings per inch may be lighter, for a chair this is exactly what you don't want.   You want, and I only buy fast growing ash with wide growth rings.

Otherwise, see below.  This was also the result of too many chairs at once and pieces getting mixed up, but honestly the post broke with not much effort. Lesson learned. Two actually...buy fast growing logs and label better.

Now if I could turn the underline off...

Repairs

It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You'll have a nice time, then two years later you'll be like, 'There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?'
David Sedaris

Every so often people want me to repair a chair for them.  More to the point, people want advice on how to fix chairs (how hard can it be, right?).   Sadly, most of the chairs that I see for repair are really not worth fixing, and or they are it's a quick epoxy and super glue deal. 

But then this showed up.  A local couple saw the article in the Bangor Daily News and contacted me about fixing an old Windsor they had for awhile, "quite awhile" they said.  So the Roger drove up and dropped of the chair and I was amazed.  This is a sweet chair.  It's a rocker, and really all the chair needs is the rockers fixed, and a couple pieces added to the elbow of the bow (see the flat slightly white part directly above the base of the arm). 

This chair, while factory made, is amazing.  It's a Fan Back, although at first blush it looks like an armed hoop back.  It has pipe stem spindles and a couple bracing spindles to boot. 

The arms are carved out of one solid piece of Mahogany and have carved knuckles.  I believe the seat was upholstered at one point, and the owner wants to, well, to be more precise, I talked him into finishing the seat with green leather.   Black milk paint, the arms will be natural mahogany, and with the green leather seat and brass tacks she will be beautiful.   The chair is really solid, and should be a pretty straight forward fix.  I'm definitely going to take some measures of this one and add it to my line. 

As to family life, last weekend at The Aroostook State Park they had Family Fun Day and I took my girls to the dog sledding and sliding.   We had such a great time and the turnout was amazing.

 

They even had the LL Bean Boot truck, and of course Smokey.

 

Bangor Daily News article

They flee from me, that sometimes did me seek...

Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder

 Kathryn Olmstead, a local writer and publisher of the wonderful magazine Echoes, is also a contributor to the Bangor Daily News.  As such,  she recently interviewed me and did a write up for the BDN about me and my craft.  It appeared in the past Friday issue, and here is the link right
here.

Bench

Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle

Philo of Alexandria



Well it has been awhile and while I won't go into detail about my absence, suffice it to say that one of my other jobs has been taking up a lot of my time and some other issues have been keeping me form posting.  But I am getting back into the shop and will be returning to posting my blog.

Bench, yeah.  Here are a few pics of a bench that I built for a show at the Messler Gallery in Rockport, Maine.  This show runs thru April 7 and assuming it does not sell there, it will then go to Harbor Square Gallery in Rockland where it will be on display. 

This bench is really based on my Comptempary Arm Chair, which owes its roots to Pete Galbert's Rocker.  I did re-design the back so the curve of the end post more closely matches the spindles.

Normally I turn the back rail but as my lathe is 42" and the back rail is 54" I had to shape it with a forkstaff plane...the same plane used to shape hay forks.  It was actually easier that I thought and while the turned pieces are very uniform, the plane shaped rail has irregularities that are pleasing to the touch.  

I also put a lot of time into the spacing and number of back spindles.  I originally thought twenty one would be about right, but visually it was too busy.  I trimmed down to 15, which I thought was about right. 

 



 

 



Getting the sweep of the rail visually "right" is maybe the hardest part.  Too little and it looks lifeless, too much and it can look comedic.  So again, like with all chairs, you have to trust your eye.  Getting this line right is much like getting the sweep of a boats sheer right.  It is very hard to subjectively say what is right or wrong, but when it is right, you know it. 

One thing I didn't consider was as the rail, with it's steam bent curve, is rotated down to add sweep, this in turn pushes middle towards the front of the bench, which nets out a more erect back.  This bench is fine and very comfortable, but my next rail will have a greater bend.

I did come up with a great way to drill the rail using the spindle itself as a guide by using a rubber band.  I make about one important discovery about every year or so and this one does work.  I'll post about it soon.