With a mighty (OK, a wussy) whuppin’, I assembled two frames for these Roorkhee chairs. All in all, they aren’t bad. Only one joint out of the two chairs keeps popping out. I’ll fix its wagon in the morning.
Tomorrow I’ll clean them up and finish them with shellac. Then it’s off to the upholstery person, whoever that is. I still haven’t been able to get a shop to return my phone calls. Perhaps I need a sexier voice.
After I got the first chair frame assembled, I put down my dead-blow mallet for a minute because I was stunned by something I hadn’t seen before. The frame is the spitting image of an Egyptian bed from one of Geoffrey Killen’s books on Egyptian furniture and woodworking tools. I cannot put my finger on the book this evening. (Note to self: Cane the librarian yet again.)
In the meantime, I was amused to receive a poem about Roorkhee chairs and the J Lo “too much junk in the trunk” problem that some of us suffer from. I will warn you, there are a couple adult words in this ode, so don’t read it aloud in Sunday School, OK?
— Christopher Schwarz
Madam, over here is a chair called a Roorkhee,
not hard to pronounce, rhymes with dorky.
Roam the world and sit unflappable,
‘cuz the damn thing is quite collapsible.
This chair is not for me it would seem,
I am much too broad ‘cross the beam.
Yes, madam, he said with a sigh,
I can see you are really quite wide.
These curves I have are my problem,
Too much here, there, and a big bottom.
But, madam you must not despair!
The Roorkhee is your kind of chair.
For you it is eminently suitable
it has the quality of being scootchable!
Take a seat and alack and alas,
the Roorkhee can handle your ass !
— Etendu du Fesse
The nom de plume — c’est parfait.
In purely naval terms: Broad abaft the beam!
Just did a quick thumb through my Killen books. Not sure about beds, but it does resemble the stools on pg. 37/45 of Egyptian Woodworking and Furniture. And the overall chair design is not far off from the chair on pg. 47.
Those books are interesting. Some day I’m going to build one of the little “shrine-shaped” boxes.
How does it keep from racking forward and back? Those tenons look too petite to me. But it’s gorgeous.
Ryan,
The chair rocks a bit when you sit in it. The upholstery and two belts keep it pulled together. The tenons are 1″ diameter and taper to 9/16″ where they emerge. It’s a pretty strong tenon.
The interesting thing about the design of the chair is that weight on the seat pulls the tapered side joints together, eliminating racking fore and aft. The leather straps between the front leg pair and the back leg pair prevents the legs from falling off the front and back rail tenons, as does the backrest when it is fitted. This flexible design enables the chair to sit firmly on the ground no matter the terrain on which it is parked. You can put a brick under one leg and it still works, despite a slight list in one direction. The ultimate ourdoor chair. Awesome!
Well, I’m going to have to get a @#$%^ lathe, I suppose. Between this project and Follansbee’s joint forms, I don’t see how I can escape it. But I loathe electric tools – I allow myself a bandsaw because I cut out 5′ long Kentucky rifle stock blanks. I need to build that treadle lathe that has been hanging over me for the past decade.
Drawknife and spokeshave will work for me until such time as I have space and funds for a lathe.
If you aren’t trying to make complex shapes, there really isn’t any need for a lathe in most cases. Cut the square stock to the tapered shape you want, than then make yourself a spar gauge (wooden boatbuilding tool) to mark the faces so you can then turn the square stock to eight sided, then from there you lay out lines to go from eight to sixteen, then sixteen to thirty two, and final rounding. This is how spars for boats are made which are nearly always too long for a lathe and you can make very accurate shapes if you are careful. It isn’t as fast as a lathe, but once you get a feel for it the work goes pretty quickly.
I’m thinking treadle lathe too. I’ve got it worked out in my head…built from a old Singer sewing machine base.
You can cut your blanks out with a bow saw if you want to avoid power. I saw a nice Lancaster School stock and a Bethlehem/Allentown School stock cut that way. The builder said it wasn’t bad work in curly maple. Speed isn’t everything. He also had a spring pole lathe rather than a treadle, although he ditched the spring pole for a bungee cord spring. I think Follansbee turns on a spring pole lathe.
Leather? What about using heavy canvas?
I think I might just have to build one or two of these! I was looking at the photo and thinking that acorn nut just doesn’t look anarchistic enough… what would have been on the period piece? Some sort of pin perhaps? What sort of leather should be used for the seat and back? It would need to be somewhat supple without being overly heavy and thick, and yet be strong enough not to stretch too much. Is there a caveperson in the house? This might be right up their alley.
BTW, loved the poem… forgot to put that in the above!
I agree that the acorn nut doesn’t look right. Perhaps a flange bolt would lend the right ambiance as well as being much less obtrusive on the outside of the frame. You certainly don’t want to knock your elbow on that nut in the middle of fabricating another spin of words, lest the words you spin become more offensive. Perchance the nut on the inside of the frame is acceptable, as it is less obtrusive and certainly not in a place close to the elbow.
“Only one joint out of the two chairs keeps popping out. I’ll fix its wagon in the morning.”
Please tell us how you fixed the joint that was popping out. I would love to learn how to fix some of my botched attempts at joinery. Thank you
Bill,
The problem was that a couple of the tapered mortises in the sea’s frame were angles slightly greater than 90° from the face of their leg. Using the tapered reamer, I scraped a little wood off the inside of the mortise to pull everything back to 90°.