It is January, so it should look like this. And now, for a little while, it does.
Down by the river. It’s not much snow, but at least it’s something.
I’ll go light the fire, and pretend to work – while really I’ll be watching the bird feeders. This joined stool is ready for assembly, I guess I can fit that into my busy day.
Masashi Kutsuwa sent me a link to another video of the Spanish chairmakers. This one is more recent, and has amazing detail of some of the process. That push knife and spoon bit action is out of this world. The chair work starts at about the 11:00 mark.
from Masashi’s note: “The young chairmaker in the video, who made and assembled those chairs at incredible speed, is Mr. Manolo Rodriguez, who I met at Guadix in 2015! He appears in my book P132-135. (I realized the young man on youtube was Manolo after my book was published!) “
Masashi also tells me that Amazon JP does international delivery. So if you’re interested in his book about the “Van Gogh” chair – that’s one way to get it.
Beautiful photo of the snow…thanks!
That workbench looks useful. Between this and a recent post from Lost Art Press about workbenches, my head is swimming with ideas.
What would JA think about those chairs? Looks amazing to me. Have you ever used a push knife?
Hi Larry – I know for a fact that JA would hate the chairs – no bent back post, no real support back there. Rush seats, JA did not like them for comfort, etc. But I imagine she would have loved the process; the low bench, the knife work. The boring – all great work. And no, I’ve never used a push knife, nor seen one curved like that.
The lad says it takes him 5 to 15 minutes per chair and that they earn him 100 pesetas (0,50 euros) each.
An hispanic friend translated that for me.
The wood is poplar (chopo in spanish).
Thanks for the amazing video, very inspiring!
thanks for your help on that end of things – he’s fast, but he can’t do the whole chair in 5-15 minutes. I wonder if they divy up the operations; shaving, boring, assembly…I’ll ask Masashi, he met him.
I see, that part of his comment would have been more about a specific subset of tasks, assembly time or something..
Poplars, both hybrid and quaking aspen, is my favourite wood to grow on the forest farm because it grows so fast even here in Qc, Canada. I will try the shave horse stress test on them to figure the right diameter for different parts :)
Do you know if M. Kutsuwa plans to translate his book in the future? I know pictures are universal but still!
Peter,
These are such great videos. I’ve never seen that push knife before. I’ll be picking up a copy of that book. Thanks for sharing this!
must be the fastest person on a shave horse south of the border, WOW