It’s like the old days – I feel like I just got back from one class and I’m preparing for the next. Worked today on a JA ladderback chair in preparation for teaching it at Pete Galbert’s shop next week. The parts are hickory, which means boring it is harder than it should be. I didn’t have enough Wheaties this morning for this work.
It’s a real nostalgia trip making these chairs. As I worked, I was thinking of all the Jennie Alexander chairs being made nowadays, and of the times I worked & carried on with JA. Many tools in my shop came from her, many ideas in my head came from her.
To take a break from boring that hickory, I went back & forth between boring and tenoning. Below is a set of 3 hickory rungs, ready for tenoning.
I got the two side sections done, then picked away at this & that. Tomorrow I hope to bore & assemble the rest of the chair. I’ll bring it to class sans seat – sometimes it’s helpful to be able to see the frame without it.
Since I got back from Lost Art Press last week, I’ve shot two videos for my joined chest series.
When I went to post the first of them – “Finish planing & layout of joinery” – it wouldn’t load to the site. And I found out that one I had posted a month ago (planes & green wood: care & cleaning, something like that) has sat there in limbo, its setting was marked “private” which meant no one could see it. I spent a ton of time the past couple of days with the Vimeo help people sorting it out. So if you’re one of the subscribers to that series, there’s 2 videos you haven’t seen yet. I’m halfway through editing the next one, which is carving the top rail’s lunettes. Hope to post that by the weekend. Here’s the link if you’d like to subscribe – it’s starting to get interesting now. Right now it’s at 5 1/2 hours of content – it’ll probably go way over my estimate of 12-15 hours. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/follansbeejoinedchest
Seems like spring is really getting here now. Saw this tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) this morning when I was out for a walk. Too involved in its preening to be bothered by me.
And an osprey flew over – they’re all around, setting up nesting…
PETER FOLLANSBEE: JOINER’S NOTES 
Looking forward to the class next week
Peter,
I have been enjoying the chest videos a great deal. I am grateful you are doing them and hope you have enough subscribers to make it well worth your time and effort.
I shaved the parts for my first JA chair last summer. A lot of the red oak I had was brash (I think, it was a new experience for me). I eventually got enough sound parts shaved for two chairs but I got intimidated and didn’t bore the mortises, so the parts have been sitting around for months. I need to push through my nerves and try to put them together.
Cheers,
Michael
Very Nice! Totally enjoying this! (the chair building of course), but the tree swallows have just arrived here in Maine also, checking out my nest boxes-wouldn’t be spring without them.
ok birds are coming–good luck with your next class–
Your Joiner’s Notes newsletter is worth reading even if one is not a woodworker. Great pictures of the work and birds.
Hi Peter, what is the lap jointed set of boards with 1, 90 degree angle and several other different angles? if ventured a guess, some sort of template, but for what?
Jesse – a jig for boring the mortises in the chair. 82 and 78 degrees I think. It’s described in Drew Langsner’s Chairmakers’ Workshop and Jennie Alexander’s new edition of Make a Chair from a Tree https://lostartpress.com/products/make-a-chair-from-a-tree
I love every mention of JA. Thank you Peter.