I just recently came back from a 6-day class teaching the JA chair at Pete Galbert’s shop in Rollinsford, N.H. Assisted again by Charlie Ryland – it went swimmingly. And of course, the teacher learns as much as anyone, maybe more. So now I am itching to make some more chairs – but can’t get to them just yet.
Charlie (r) helping Brett assemble his chair.
There were 8 students whaling away at some red oak and a little bit of ash – splitting & shaving for a couple of days, then boring mortises & shaving tenons. All the chairs went together fine and were really well-done. The slats in particular went off without a hitch. Always a relief.
the brace & bit
I told “iron man” Russ he was my favorite student because he used the brace & bit – most others used a cordless electric drill. (actually used the brace & bit too – but I still called Russ Iron Man.)
Pete’s shop is in a huge mill in Rollinsford, right on the NH/Maine border. Upstairs is a semi-new tenant, but an old friend – Dan Faia. We took an early lunch break to go see Dan’s new setup there – he’ll be in the mill full-time starting later this spring, offering small classes and even one-on-one instruction.
Dan Faia
For decades, Dan has been teaching at Nort Bennet Street School in Boston – and running the furniture program there for a long time. Now he’s going to be closer to home and avoiding all that traffic that he endured so long. His shop in the mill is spectacular –
patterns galore
Everywhere you look is inspiration.
legs
We spent a bit of time learning about this chair he’s been building as a Fine Woodworking video – they’re just about done shooting it I think. It looks like Dan just waves his hand and there’s a walnut chair…
FWW video chair
So if you are looking for first-class instruction in fine furniture work, take a trip to Dan’s shop – here’s his website, etc
My upload allowance renewed today, so I posted the rest of the videos for Making the Jennie Alexander chair. It’s now at 8 hours & 41 minutes. That’s a lot to get through, but less than a 6-day class. And the comfort of your own home, as they say.
scoring the first strip of hickory bark
I put the hickory bark harvest as an appendix of sorts – well, it’s the last video anyway. Not everyone has access to harvesting their own bark – and I touch on alternative seating materials in the seat-weaving section. Drew Langsner reminded me of his short description of making and using inner bark of the tulip poplar tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) – it’s in his updated book Country Woodcraft: Then & Now. Tulip poplar is more readily available than hickory in some places.
Making this video has brought up a lot of memories for me. I’ve been researching for a few years a piece that will be about the people who taught me green woodworking – and Alexander features prominently in that work. It’s a long term project, but I picked away at some of it recently. And found confirmation for what I have known for years – a note in which Alexander admits she loved hickory bark and hated hickory bark work! “TEDIOUS TEDIOUS TEDIOUS” was how she put it. Funny how some people take to one aspect of the work, and others are put off by it. I really like working with bark – both the harvest and weaving with it.
one of JA’s chairs – bark seat by Nathaniel Krause
I have some sorting & cleanup to do, but I’m going to make a couple more of those chairs while they’re on my mind.
UPDATE – this chair sold. If you missed it & you want one, let me know. I have more in the works.
First chair done this year – but it’s from parts made last year. So I don’t know if it really counts. But this is the chair I’ve been making as I shoot the how-to video. That video is getting nearer to being done, it’s harder work than making the chair. The chair has white oak posts & slats, hickory rungs and hickory bark seat. That’s Jennie Alexander’s favorite mix of materials.
PF ladderback January 2023
I was shooting photos of it today to use in the video titles – and to file in my archive of made-stuff. I’ll never know how many chairs I made – so many got away before I started keeping close track. I don’t make a lot of chairs – but over the years, I’ve made lots of kinds of chairs – turned, joined, Windsors, brettstuhls, and these ladderbacks. After a long hiatus during which I made a slew of big heavy 17th century style chairs, I started making these again in 2018, the 40th anniversary of Jennie Alexander’s book. It’s been a lot of run revisiting this chair – this time I’m going to keep at them…
white oak slats & posts
And a hickory bark seat. This one’s from the bark I harvested with Brendan Gaffney – it took 2 strips of bark to weave the seat. No splicing! A couple of odd strips here & there to tuck into the side spaces, but those don’t count.
hickory bark seat
This one’s available if someone’s interested. $1,400 including shipping in US. Leave a comment or send me an email if you’re interested in purchasing the chair – Peterfollansbee7@gmail.com
I continue to get notices of new subscribers, maybe more lately than a short while ago. This is very encouraging – I had worried that maybe blogs were falling by the wayside. Glad to see continued interest in this one. I have an Instagram page or feed or whatever-you-call them – but I’ve run out of steam with it. I’ll keep it for a while at least, but won’t give it much of my attention. I much prefer the blog – so thanks to all who’ve stuck with it and welcome to any newcomers.
For those newcomers, you wouldn’t know it lately, but often there’s birds on this blog – and finally today I got one I’ve been waiting 22 years for. This female evening grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) appeared yesterday – first time ever in our yard. But I couldn’t get a photo. It came back today & I managed to sneak a few shots. When I was first learning about birds in the 1970s these birds were common around here in winter, showing up in flocks of 20 or more. This is only the 2nd time I’ve seen one since the early 1980s. Now if only the male would show up – https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Evening_Grosbeak/overview
female evening grosbeak
Another thing that sometimes happens here is I pull things out of the loft and offer than at a reduced price. Some are there because they’re not quite “right”, others just didn’t sell & went up there. Or I never offered them for sale. There’s one of each from those categories now. From the “just didn’t sell” category – two – a box and a chair.
If you’d like to purchase any of these, send me an email or leave a comment here. You can pay with a check or paypal – I’ll tack $35 on for paypal – my email is peterfollansbee7@gmail.com
CARVED OAK BOX H: 8″ W: 24″ D: 13 1/2″
white pine lid & bottom $1,400 includes shipping in US. Now $1,200SOLD
I KEEP WHITTLING THE PRICE DOWN ON THIS – HERE’S THE LAST SHOT AT IT – $1,000 – SAME GIG, SHIPPING IN U.S. INCLUDED.
oak box spring 2022
end view oak box spring 2022
The inside features a lidded till. The sides and bottoms of tills are made from what I find around the shop. In this case, a black walnut till side.
till
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The other from this category is a ladderback chair with Shaker tape seat.
LADDERBACK CHAIR – SOLD 11/29 red oak posts & slats, hickory rungs. Shaker tape seat H: 33 1/4″ W: (across front posts): 17 1/4″ D: (from rear post-tops to front posts): 16″ Seat height 17 1/4″ $1,200 NOW $1,000 including shipping in U.S.
This is one of my chairs patterned after Jennie Alexander’s chair. Mine’s a bit heavier in its parts (& overall) than JA’s. But hers were the lightest of all.
red oak & hickory chair
front view
front view ladderback chair
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From the “not quite right” category – another ladderback chair. This one is asymmetrical – the only damage is to my pride, the chair is sound. Just a little off-kilter. One rear post is angled out more than its neighbor. Or less, depending on how you look at it. Tight, strong – everything about it is OK except that. Sits fine. Will outlast us all. A hickory chair with white oak slats, hickory bark seat. (In the photo below you can see the post on our left angled out more than that on the right.)
Dimensions about the same at the chair above.
LADDERBACK CHAIR – SOLD 11/30
Hickory posts & rungs, white oak slats. Hickory bark seat. dimensions approx. H: 33 1/4″ W: (across front posts): 17 1/4″ D: (from rear post-tops to front posts): 16″ Seat height 17 1/4″ $1,000 includes shipping in U.S.
hickory & white oak chair
Another view.
hickory & white oak chair
Ah! the “never-offered” category didn’t get photographed. It’s one of the brettstuhls/board chairs. I’ll shoot it tomorrow or Friday – I’ll post it here later in the week.
I taught a class in making the Jennie Alexander chair with Pete Galbert & Charlie Ryland just recently. During the class, I put on my “old fart” hat & told stories of JA’s chairmaking career. Then back home I’ve been working on a few chairs – the parts for which have been made & stored here for quite a while. It got me to thinking of how the chairmaking changed from what’s in the original 1978 edition of the book, to the revised one in 1994 to the present 3rd edition. And now will change again as more & more people are making these chairs. I looked recently at that first edition – I made chairs from it before meeting JA & Drew Langsner – but it’s pretty stingy on instruction.
In the first edition (1978) there’s no kiln, no steambox. JA dried rungs in the basement nestled up above a pipe from the hot water heater. (How did JA dry things in a Baltimore summer?) A chairmaker JA corresponded with in the early 1970s dried rungs on the tin roof of the shop. In the south. Gets hot up there.
Geli Courpas reminded me once that back in the mid-to-late 1970s they bent the posts green, so a more subtle bend than in the later chairs. Below is a lousy photo, cropped from a larger view, showing one of these early 2-slat chairs with slight bend to the posts.
The book talks about boiling the posts prior to bending, but doesn’t do it.
bending rear post, 1978
At first, her chairs were assembled with pretty wet posts. Easy & forgiving, but not the best for a long-lasting joint. The work JA did with Bruce Hoadley showed that a lower moisture content in the post resulted in a stronger joint. That gave rise to the air-dry post/oven-dry rung.
So all that is changed/fixed in the present text – it shows how to super-dry the rungs, how to steam & bend the posts and other detailed improvements on the earlier text.
improved bending form for rear posts
I made a layout error in the class that led to some plugged mortises in students’ chairs. Everyone was very understanding. I recently learned from reading JA’s notebooks that during the photo shoot for the first book she put the front rungs in the rear posts (or vice-versa) – was able to get them out & redo things. But mistakes are easy to make. Once JA told me that a working title of the book was “The Fifth Post.”
I rived and planed some legs for another of my Alpine chairs. Was able to split an odd number so made 5 legs. Just in case.
I know how you like to see me make mistakes. Made a doozy yesterday. I was having a great day making a JA chair, everything going swimmingly. Chopped the slat mortises, did all the boring and sub-assembly. Even brought Daniel out for the final assembly – it’s nice to have an extra set of hands and he seems to like the weird noises the joints make as they go together.
Then I blew up the front post. Sheared it almost in two, right in the middle.
bad ending to a good day
Exit Daniel while I figured out what to do. “I thought you were supposed to be good at this…” I keep hearing that high school kid from years ago.
Oh well, a teaching moment. Of course it happened at the end of the day. So I didn’t really get blow-by-blow photos. First thing – get the broken post off those rungs. Before the glue hardens. This was yellow glue and it was late in the afternoon, so not hot weather. Time on my side there. I sawed it off above and below each set of rungs. Then split off the bits.
looks like René Magritte was here
Then spoke-shaved and bored a new post. Put some glue in the mortises, wriggled it onto the side rungs, then drove that home. Then wriggled it onto the front rungs.
there’s hope yet
And split it to smithereens.
The culprit? Besides me, I mean. Slow-growing oak. Maybe too-tight joints. Certainly the first, maybe both factors. I’ve written a number of times about slow-grown oak – how much I like it FOR JOINERY WORK. Planes easily, mortising – piece of cake. Carves beautifully. But that oak furniture I make is greatly over-built. Jennie Alexander’s chair is designed to push the material as far as you can. So no weak wood there. I was testing my luck using these posts – and lost.
these shouldn’t be chair parts
Those bits above are 1 3/8″ in diameter, more or less. The pencil marks are at 5-year intervals. The two on the left have just over 15 growth rings in them. In red oak, that’s a lot of open pores and weak fibers. the one on the right went in the chair successfully – and it’s still pretty dicey. 11 rings maybe?
finally!
Today I got a new post on the chair & it’s fine now.
And started in on a white oak chair with posts that have about 7 or 8 growth rings. Strong, just like JA used to use.
THAT’S chair wood
I was thinking about Alexander a lot – I had extra time on this chair. I remember her telling me years ago she wanted to call the book “The Fifth Post.” And then, when reading her old notebooks, I see that during the original photo shoot for the first edition, she put the rear rungs in the front section! Got them back out somehow and carried on. Well, the consolation is that it’s good to be ready for chair emergencies and to know what to do when things go horribly wrong. No one got hurt, that’s a plus.
For my first Windsor-style chair in decades, I was happy enough with that one. Which is different from “I was happy with it.” One problem I had was the legs splitting at the joints.
splits in rear leg & side stretcher
I suspected my tenons were too large. I talked to Curtis about it, and if I remember right, he said because of the steep angle (say where the side stretcher meets the leg) you can get splitting. Suggested yes, make the tenons a bit smaller than I might in a ladderback chair. I was using white ash. I think another factor was the auger bit I used. It has a thick lead screw that might have contributed to the splitting.
For me, one of the most glaring problems was boring the mortises directly in the tangential plane of the legs. And the orientation of the leg is dictated by the orientation of the seat. In this case:
the long fibers (the “grain”) of the seat run front-to-back.
The growth rings in the legs’ tenons (the whole leg actually) are therefore oriented so they run perpendicular to the fibers in the seat.
The leg is split so the wedge is also perpendicular to the fibers of the seat.
This makes the front view of the front legs (and back legs) the tangential plane. And it means when boring the mortises for the side stretchers you’re boring directly into the growth ring plane. Where ring porous woods split very easily.
BUT – I hate looking at the tangential plane of ring porous hardwoods like oak, ash, etc. And on my first democratic chair, the front of the front legs (and back of the back legs) is this plane.
front leg shaved chair, Jan 2020
I thought about switching the leg orientation 90 degrees to the “usual” format. Then you wedge it just the same. This puts the leg’s radial plane, which changes less than the tangential plane, running in the direction in which the seat moves the most from one season to the next. So in a worst-case scenario the seat could split I guess, if it shrank a lot versus the leg tenon which wouldn’t shrink much. I think if you use a softwood seat like white pine, and hardwood legs, the seat will compress before it will split from the legs. I bet any problem would be at assembly, not afterwards. I could, of course, be wrong. It’s been a long time since I was really a chairmaker of this sort.
In the usual orientation, the leg’s radial plane lines up with the long fibers of the seat. The seat does not shrink in this direction at all; maybe the tiniest fraction of an inch. If you were to make the change I was thinking about, the radial face would now be the front view of the legs. Better visually for me, but now you’d still be boring into the radial face./growth ring plane, where ring porous hardwoods also split very easily.
In the ladderbacks I learned from John Alexander and Drew Langsner, we positioned the posts’ growth rings at an angle to the rungs…they coined the phrase “post and rung compromise.” They didn’t make up the concept, it came from studying old chairs. The reason for it is to reduce the chance of splitting the legs when driving the rungs in – the mortises are bored between the growth ring plane and the radial plane. Below is one of Chester Cornett’s chairs, showing the front post oriented with this post & rung compromise. The radial crack bisects the angle between the front & side rungs. But you see how neither of those mortises are in the radial or growth ring plane. Some of Chester’s chairs that I saw used sassafrass posts, this one was white oak, very slowly grown.
I decided to try something this on my democratic chair #2. I was moderately successful. The legs & stretchers on this chair are also white ash, and had grown a bit too slow for this application. Too many growth rings make them a bit weak. I oriented the stretchers in the usual way – their hardwood-to-hardwood mortise & tenon joints seemed more critical to me than the hardwood/softwood leg-to-seat joints. So the growth rings on the side stretchers are parallel to the floor – those on the center stretcher are perpendicular to the floor. This means the mortises for the center stretcher are bored into the radial face, directly in the growth ring plane.
boring the mortise for the center stretcher
One side stretcher cracked slightly like on the first chair. I keep learning.
But it was the legs that I moved around. I re-positioned them just a bit, turning them in their tapered mortises so the growth rings were angled to the fibers in the seat. The wedge, and the wedging action, are still perpendicular to the long fibers in the seat.
rear leg in the seat
This way I was boring the mortises for the side stretchers one facet off from the growth ring or radial plane.
It worked pretty well, one leg has a small split, but that might be more due to the slow growth rings than anything else. Next time, I’d choose a faster-growing log, and I might turn the tenons rather than spoke-shaving them. It’s better than first time out, almost to where I’m happy with it.
I’ve been home from my most recent Lost Art Press workshop-trip now for a week. I just made it into the shop for real today, but took no photos. Christmas presents. So photos later of those. Maybe.
But I started sorting photos from the past month or so. I made another field trip with the Boy Wonder, aka Brendan Gaffney https://www.instagram.com/burnheartmade/ to see more of Chester Cornett’s chairs. This time we went to the Mathers Museum at Indiana University. I’ll just post photos with captions/notes. The lighting conditions were tough. So, horrid color, real high ISO. These photos aren’t going to win any prizes.
Here’s Brendan for scale, measuring a 3-slat high chair/bar stool. There’s one of these in Alexander’s book, but it’s not this chair. I think this one was sassafrass, very lightweight wood. Harder rungs, they might be hickory, I forget.
This one’s white oak. A 3-slat chair. Chester often bent the rear seat rung to mimic the bent slats. JA wrote to never include sapwood and heartwood in the same stick. Chester didn’t learn chairmaking from a book.
Same chair. Side view.
You can tell this is a 3-slat chair because Chester wrote 1, 2, 3 on the slats.
Another little 3-slat chair. Painted, probably by the owner, Chester didn’t paint them. I like how the paint wore away & highlighted the drawknife work.
A 6-slat rocker. I think this one was sassafrass again. Side view – a real nice chair, his drawknife work was excellent.
All that detail is knife-work. The faux turnings, the giant finials, all the pegs.
Maybe if you click this photo to enlarge it, you’ll see the numbers 1-6 on the slats.
The numbers are in this view too. The layout for the slat mortises is pencil too.
The details on all those rungs, even the rear ones.
The bookcase rocker. What a monstrosity. I’ve built some ugly, heavy chairs in my day. But nothing like this.
Brendan for scale again. The chair is smaller than you might think. The shelves are maybe 6/4 stock. The shelves just above the seat are hinged to access compartments on each side.
PETER FOLLANSBEE: JOINER’S NOTES 