This weekend I built a six-board chest for the Alabama Woodworkers Guild, and I was impressed. Not just with the members or the food (holy moley, the food), but by the building where they meet.
It’s an old schoolhouse nestled in the pines south of Birmingham, Ala., and it almost made me rethink my plans to buy a building in downtown Covington, Ky. The members have restored the building, which had more recently been a roller rink, a recreation center and then a storage unit for Habitat for Humanity.
There are three main rooms: a kitchen, a classroom (with a digital projector) and the main workshop and demonstration room. Tall ceilings. Yellow pine floors. Enormous divided-light windows.
Oh, and a roll-up door and loading dock.
In other words, heaven.
If you live in that neck of the woods, check out the club. Dues are reasonable. The food they serve is amazing (I know that sounds odd, but they take their food as seriously as I do). And the shop equipment is very good.
And thanks to all the Alabama and Mississippi woodworkers who treated me so well over the weekend. They were kind enough to make only two Arkansas jokes.
Because the Roorkee chair has leatherwork and turning, many woodworkers ask me about the basic toolset needed to build one of these chairs. When I teach a class in making a Roorkee chair, here is the core set I recommend.
1. Full-size Easy Rougher from EasyWood Tools with an R4 cutter. I am not a turner. I am a furniture maker who turns. So when I teach turning, I look for the easiest path. With the EasyWood tool I don’t have to teach sharpening. And I have to teach only one grip on the tool. This one tool does all the cuts on the chair, and it does an excellent job. The full-size version costs more than the smaller versions, but I find the bigger tools easier for beginners to use. These tools are available everywhere, but I prefer to buy direct from the maker because it puts more money in their pocket.
2. If you plan to make more of these chairs, I recommend you buy the Veritas 5/8” Tapered Tenon Cutter. You can cut the taper on the lathe, but this pencil-sharpener-like device ensures your tenon will be a perfect fit in your socket every time.
3. The tapered hole is made using the Veritas Large Standard Taper Reamer. I prefer the less-expensive standard version because it can be used in a brace, electric drill or drill press. The more expensive professional reamer is used in a brace only.
To finish the woodwork part of the project, you’ll need some drill bits (1/16” up to 5/8”), marking and measuring tools, screwdrivers and a block plane (or sandpaper) to clean up the flat sections of the legs.
The leather can look daunting, but it actually is quite easy and is accomplished with just a few tools.
4. For cutting the leather, I recommend a sharp utility knife (be sure to buy some of the heavy replacement blades). Any utility knife will do, though I don’t recommend the spring-loaded ones where you have to press the blade out continuously during the cut. That kills your thumb. I touch up the cutting edge of my utility blades on my sharpening stones or a strop. I can usually cut out two or three chairs on one blade.
5. To punch holes for the belting and rivets, I recommend the Tandy Mini Punch Set. I have a nice rotary punch, but this inexpensive set gets you started at a small fraction of the price of a good rotary punch.
6. When punching holes, you’ll need a mallet and a backing board. With leather, I prefer to use an old poly cutting board as the backing board.
7. To set the rivets, you’ll need a rivet setter. Because I use No. 9 copper rivets, I recommend the No. 9 Craftool Rivet and Burr Setter, also from Tandy. You’ll also need a tool to snip the the rivets to finished length. I use my nippers, which work well.
If you get deep into the leather work, you’ll find there are a lot of tools you can buy that will simplify and automate a lot of the processes (such as specialized punches that make the decorative belting ends). If you want to buy one extra tool to make your life easier, get the Craftool Strap Cutter. It cuts straps and belts with astonishing speed and can save you an hour of time on each chair.
Next month, I head to sunny/warm/tasty Anaheim, Calif., to teach two classes – a four-day class on building Roorkee chairs and a two-day class on building a Dutch tool chest.
The classes will be held at the William Ng School of Fine Woodworking. This is my first teaching assignment in Southern California, though I have been there many times for woodworking shows, vacations and tacos.
The Roorkee chair class is March 17-20. This is one of my favorite classes to teach because it involves so many new skills for woodworkers, such as learning to make tapered conical mortises, spindle turning and leatherwork. These chairs are great fun to build, plus they travel extraordinarily well.
I’ll also be teaching a two-day class in building a Dutch Tool Chest (March 22-23). This is a somewhat brutal but effective introduction to hand-tool casework. You’ll learn dovetails, dados, rabbets, cut-nail joinery and all of the rules for carcase construction in just two days.
When I teach this class, some of the students end up napping on the bench. But they all end up taking home a tool chest that is portable, tough and useful.
Here’s one of my shameful secrets. When I finish writing a book, I buy something for myself. It can be big or it can be small.
When I finished “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use,” I bought a beat-up 1968 Karmann-Ghia to restore. When I finished “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I bought a pair of canoe moccasins from Arrow MoccasinCo. (my favorite shoes ever).
When I finished “Campaign Furniture,” I purchased a piece of campaign furniture.
Last fall when I visited Christopher Clarke Antiques for research, they had a Douro chair there that I fell for. The Douro chair is an amazingly comfortable chair that folds into a box. The box converts into a table thanks to four turned legs. I really wanted to own an original because I want to make a copy to take on the road.
The chair arrives this coming week, and I am greatly looking forward to geeking out over its details, from the iron-lined box to the caned back. Building a reproduction of the chair will let me try caning and do some more leatherwork, which is fun.
So if you’ve bought a book from Lost Art Press in the last few years, thanks for your help with buying this Douro.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. We are still waiting to hear a shipping date on “Campaign Furniture” from our printer. My guess: March 7.
Illustratie uit: Huygen, Pieter. De beginselen van Gods koninkryk in den mensch uitgedrukt in zinnebeelden. Amsterdam: wed. Arentsz. Pieter (II), 1689, p. 32.
“I can teach a man to sail but I can never teach him why.”
