I’ve been busy with the return of students in the shop, and I must say, it’s been a pleasure. I am working with my old friend and North Bennet Alum Charlie Ryland to prep classes and teach which has added to the fun. Charlie is a highly effective teacher and I’m sure the students agree that he’s a pleasure to work with.
Charlie squaring up a Mortise
Besides teaching, I’ve been having lots of fun experimenting with using dried wood for chairs. I’m going deep into it in the second part of my Foundations video series. But the short version is this. You can get “rived” wood, in other words, wood that follows the fibers, from ash boards and then rehydrate it, shave it and bend it like it was green!
sawn parts
Shaves like Greenwood!
It bends too!
I’m definitely still playing with the variables, but my initial efforts have proven to me that making chairs from kiln dried ash boards instead of logs is not only possible, but just as fun and easy once you get used to busting the parts out of a board. Once soaked for about 5 days, the ash is wetter than when felled and actually works better than non seasoned wood when shaving the radial surfaces.
I have some new plans available for my “Drawing Chair” They can be ordered in print or pdf versions here.
These plans, beautifully drawn by Jeff Lefkowitz, are of the chair that I’m building in the second part of my video series. I call it my “Drawing Chair” because I sat on this little chair for all the countless hours I spent drawing the images for my book. I designed it as childs chair, but it works so well as a work chair when doing work at the kitchen table that I always have one nearby. For kid’s it’s great, light enough for them to move around and tall enough to get them to the table height. Best of all, it can be easily made from all kiln dried resources!
I’ll be announcing new classes for the spring of 2022 soon, and have just a few spots open in some turning classes for the fall (check the schedule if you’re interested)