While teaching at The Furniture Institute of Massachusetts this week, Phil Lowe pulled out an interesting conservation (or restoration) project he was working on for a customer.
It was a footstool that was in pretty bad shape because the joints were all loose or coming apart. Or was that by design?
Lowe turned the stool over and pointed out how the four legs were attached to the top frame of the stool with snipe hinges. Then he showed how the lower stretcher simply pulled out of its dovetailed socket and was keyed in there at some point.
So it looks like the whole stool was designed to fold down.
Was it English? The turnings looked kind of English. And the entire thing was worm-eaten like old English walnut. Was it a campaign piece?
Who knows?
Lowe pulled up some of the horsehair and burlap stuffing and showed me a further mystery. The frame and legs were nailed together so the legs couldn’t fold. And the nails were blacksmith-made, wrought-head nails. Very early. Was the stool built to knock down? Was the nail added immediately after the maker saw that the folding wasn’t work to his or her liking? Or what?
Lowe and I looked at the piece for a good long while. Then we walked away and had a beer.
If you’ve seen a piece like this, leave a comment or let Lowe know. He’s debating how to properly conserve or restore the piece.
If you own “Campaign Furniture,” you might want to visit my other blog where I posted some free full-size scans of the patterns I use to make the seat and the three “pockets” for the stool.
This is made with 8 oz. 10 oz. oiled latigo leather from the Wickett & Craig tannery. Any thickish leather will work, however. I prefer vegetable-tanned hides because they stretch less and age better.
This stool was – sadly – the last one I’ll be making from this old teak. These were the last three sticks that were 24” long and thick enough to turn the 1-1/4”-diameter legs. So now the smell of beetle dung will subside a little more in my shop.
These stools are a great project, even if you don’t turn. Many broom handles can be pressed into service, and the Lee Valley Campaign Stool Hardware makes it classy.
My next stool is going to use charred ash – some scraps left over from my latest chair.
O teak!
You delight of clients’ wives,
refuge of architects,
and the dot over the “i” of honoraria.
You fiendishly indestructible and shitty brown.
You are so Asiatic Company-like and so noble
that you cannot even stand being painted in a vibrant color,
so full of virtues that you can only be shown nude
as God, in a moment of genius, created you,
sexless, boring, as costly as virtue itself.
Neither a knot nor a crack on you can make little girls and boys
think that not everything is the same at both ends.
Together with stainless steel and reinforced concrete
you stand as the trinity of the times.
Banks, corporations, and savings and loans worship you.
You are the symbol of all manner of consolidated semi-education,
the discrete advertisement for the suitable height of our tax bracket
and the corresponding excellence of our neighborhood.
Once you were an honorable maritime material,
intended to withstand storm and salt water.
Now you have been raised to the pedestal of taste.
Now even bank customers,
who themselves must pay the price,
fall on their knees before the totem pole of teak.
*
Humble and touching pine,
which can rot in decent fashion,
which must not show its dirty hue at any price,
which modestly wears the painter’s color –
Let us be old fashioned together and out of touch with the times.
Our chance will come again, sooner or later.
— Poul Henningsen (1894-1967), Danish author, architect and critic, written Oct. 28, 1953
There is some wood that I cannot bear to discard, no matter how small the scrap. A quick survey of my wood rack this morning revealed bundles of very old quartered yellow pine, huon pine, Honduran mahogany and stacks of little teak offcuts.
Though it has been a couple years since I completed the projects for “Campaign Furniture,” the teak from that book is still with me daily. I use it for making drawer runners, skids for tool chests and the occasional folding stool. It might be another 10 years before I get rid of it all.
As my teak is more than 50 years old, I wonder if it was harvested as per the following description (I thought I smelled elephants).
— Christopher Schwarz
“This (Tectona grandis) is the only true teak. As a constructive timber its only rival is British oak. Apart, too, from the limited shipments from Siam and Java, the world depends for its supplies on the forests of India and Burma. The teak forests suffered considerably during the Second World War. The value of the timber had been recognized by the Old East India Company and was used by the naval authorities early in the 19th century. Fortunately almost all of the areas in India containing teak are under government supervision….
“The tree, which may rise to 100 ft. or more in height, is noted for its exceptionally large and rough-surfaced leaves. These have been found up to 18 ins. or 20 ins. in length, with a breadth of from 9 ins. to 14 ins. To natives they serve as a substitute for glasspaper….
“The method of extraction from the Indian teak forests are interesting. Trees that are deemed by the inspectors to be in a condition or of a size that warrants their removal are first girdled; that is, an incision is made round the base of the trunk of the standing tree, right through the sap. This prevents the upward flow of the life juices of the tree and effectively kills the growth. It remains standing in this state for two years or more, and in the interval the wood loses a great part of its weight. This operation is necessary. If felled straightaway, the logs, owing to their great weight would not float; and, as the river currents are the only means of transport, this procedure has to be adopted. Consequent upon this method of extraction, and owing to the lengthy period it takes to prepare the wood for market after it has been floated to the mills, all timber is in a well-seasoned condition by the time it reaches our own and other markets. Trained elephants, with an intelligence that is said to be almost uncanny, are employed for handling the timber, and under the direction of native labour perform all the manual work, dragging the heavy trees down to the water-courses and moving the timber with their trunks while it is being converted at the mills and until it is finally shipped.”
— “Timbers for Woodwork” (Drake, 1969) edited by J.C.S. Brough
If you’d like a close look at some of the details of Kaare Klint’s Safari Chair, check out this video (OK, it’s a commercial) from Carl Hansen & Søn on the piece.
You get to see the elegant cigar-shape stretchers and how the slightly tapered tenons flow into the overall shape. Plus a bunch of nice close-ups of the way the leather is attached to the wood.
I’ve seen a lot of new Roorkee/Safari chairs on the market lately, some of them with design details I rejected. On my first Roorkees I used a vegetable-tanned leather that I left natural. Heck, I even sent photos of it to Popular Woodworking to use in the article published three years ago on building them. I quickly changed my mind on the leather color, thinking it to “fleshy” – almost a “Silence of the Roorkees” look.
But several design houses are now triumphing that look – natural leather with dark wood.
I’m still not a fan.
If you want to build one of these chairs, complete plans are in “Campaign Furniture,” now in its second printing.
