If you want a vest, don’t delay. These are time-consuming to make, so this is likely the last batch until fall 2020. They are worth the wait. I wear mine almost every day and have thoroughly broken the thing in. It’s soft, pliable and impregnated with sawdust. I love it. Be sure to measure yourself before ordering to avoid disappointment.
We have had more luck scaling up production of pinch rods. But there is a tremendous amount of hand-finishing with these (like our lump hammers), so we’re still struggling a bit to keep up with demand.
Editor’s note: This is the second Chair Chat with Rudy and Klaus where today we discuss a chair that was sold by a Welsh antiques dealer represented as being from Bronant in Cardiganshire. We don’t authenticate chairs – we just talk about what we like and don’t like. This one is another three-legged thing measuring 22″ wide, 15-3/8″ deep and 41″ tall.
I adore all three-legged chairs (it might have to do with my three-legged cat) but this one is especially special.
Chris: What I love about this chair is it’s so simple below the seat and has a lot going on above the seat. Like wearing a tux and a Speedo.
Klaus: Good analogy. Everyone can relate to that, Chris. It’s incredibly beautiful. First of all, I love the wear on that finish.
Rudy: Funny how it’s worn on all sticks.
Chris: Yeah. Do you think the wear is authentic?
Rudy: Maybe, maybe not…
Klaus: Looks like it’s rubbed off. Not by buttocks, I mean.
Rudy: If the sitter had a large enough back to reach those outer long sticks…
Chris: That’s what first jumped out at me. The wear on the back looks right. But it must have been a fat dude wearing a 120-grit T-shirt to get the sticks that way.
Rudy: Exactly!
Klaus: How common is it to manipulate a finish in antique furniture?
Chris: Very. But aside from that, I love the boxy top.
Rudy: Yup, me too. The crest adds a lot to the overall appearance too.
Klaus: Very compact and perfectly proportioned. If the back was longer, it would tip the balance, I think.
Chris: Totally agree. I tend to like compact backs. Though they are much harder to make comfortable.
The three-piece armbow shows great skill. I think the ends of the joint are beveled in. But it’s a bit tricky to see with the photos.
Rudy: What is funny though is that one stick that protrudes on the right arm. Was that a repair?
Chris: A repair or a stick that has come loose from the mortise below. Odd how they antiqued it….
Klaus: If it was a repair, then why let it protrude like that?
Rudy: …and somehow it has the same wear as the sticks around it…
Chris: Exactly! Anyway, getting away from the CSI Wales, I also adore the comb.
Rudy: It is a thing of beauty in its simplicity.
Klaus: I like that that subtle bend to the comb. A good crest can really top off a chair
Chris: And the ends. Not an obvious shape until you see it. Like a stone worn by a river.
Rudy: Or by a fat back.
Klaus: Oooh, poetic analogy again, Chris!
Rudy: And there is no doubler.
Klaus: The scarf joint eliminates the need for that, I guess.
Chris: Indeed. Bent arms and the scarf allow you to get away with that. I gotta think that the arms are bent branches or roots – like what Emyr Davies and Chris Williams say.
The top of this chair is just perfect. The unusual stuff is in the seat.
Klaus: That seat grain pattern looks like the universe itself.
Rudy: What strikes me is that the seat is so thick, yet it doesn’t appear clunky or out of balance.
Chris: I LOVE the chunky seat. But I don’t have a butt, so perhaps I am just jealous.
Klaus: Very nice. And no bevel on the underside? Wait, there IS a small bevel actually… And this is what John Brown called a modified seat, isn’t it?
Chris: Yeah. And I REALLY want to know more about those.
Rudy: Yup! With three pegs going through the added piece from the front. Do you think the maker used glue in addition?
Klaus: I recently asked chairmaker Chris Williams about this subject. He pointed out that the arms always dictate everything. Which means that the front short sticks would come too close to the edge if the maker hadn’t made that add-on. And rather than shortening the armbow – if he only had that particular piece of ash seat available – he’d have to extend the seat. And there likely was no glue available when that was built.
Chris: I agree. But what about when the modification looks later than the chair? I assume these were added for comfort or another reason.
Klaus: If added at a later stage it must have been for added comfort, I agree.
Rudy: Part of the seat could have snapped off, but that is not so likely with a seat this thick…
Chris: I assume so. But we don’t know. What we do know is that it appears on chairs. Sometimes it looks original. Sometimes not. This one could be original. But I’ve seen some that look too recent. And by a different hand.
Rudy: Did you guys spot that big knot right in the seat right next to the back leg?
Chris Schwarz: Yes. I would have hated to drill that back leg mortise. I wonder if the maker was aiming for the knot (assuming he/she drilled from below).
Rudy: The maker could have made it a four legged chair, but instead drilled his mortise right next to a knot… puzzling. But the chair survived fine!
Klaus: Haha. Good point. And what happened on the back corner there? You think it split when he hammered in the stick or drilled the mortise? Or did some drunk Welshman throw the chair out of a window, perhaps?
Chris: I thought it was a defect in the seat. A loose knot?
Klaus: My wife says I’ve got a loose knot, too.
Chris: I think we are much pickier about wood for the seat than earlier makers.
Rudy: But going back to the fact that the chair has three legs: Three legged chairs were usually made to be stable on uneven floors. But this chair does not look primitive enough to me to be living in a barn somewhere. I could be wrong of course, but most three-legged chair examples I have seen were stools, backstools or lowbacks.
Chris: There are some nice three-leggers out there. But you are correct in general.
Klaus: Good point, Rudy. This one is perhaps one step above so-called furniture of necessity. What strikes me though, is how hard it would be for me to make a “primitive” chair like this.
Chris Schwarz: I agree, it’s a trick to have a chair that is so simple, balanced, elegant and rustic. I want to make one. This one just nails it down below. I love the splay on the front legs. Aggressive, but not overly. The maker had a good eye.
Rudy: Indeed. I love the general appearance, very balanced and a great form overall!
Klaus: I also love that the arm tilts ever so slightly upwards.
Chris: I hadn’t noticed. Nice catch! If that’s the case, it allows you to put the back of the armbow closer to the lumbar region. And get the hands up. It shows skill and thoughtfulness.
Rudy: Yeah, and it makes the chair very inviting to sit in.
Klaus: Definitely. It probably pitches the sitter a bit back. The slightly tilted arm adds an upward movement to the look of chair, too. And the sticks are also slightly longer above the arm, than under, which adds to that same upwards movement. I like that. Makes the whole chair stretch upwards.
Rudy: True. And all this is balanced by the thick seat.
Chris: Agree. I want to sit in it and see how it feels. So, anything bad to say about this chair? Any misses?
Klaus: Hm. well, about the turned legs? I mean, I like them, but..
Chris: They could be shaved. Look at the reflection on the front leg. It suggests a facet to me.
Klaus: Actually, they fit the rest of the chair. I’m not sure hexagonal or octagonal would fit here.
Rudy: My eye is distracted by the nice splay. But I agree, I don’t think hexagons or octagons would have worked as well here.
Chris: Lots of round legs were shaved I think. I really like doing that on Gibson chairs. Looks better than lathe work. Or my lathe work, that is.
Klaus: So the conclusion is that the chair is perfect, then!
Rudy: Do we want to give this chair a name?
Chris: How about Try Tri Again? …after last week’s three-legger?
Klaus: Yeah, that sounds good!
Rudy: Perfect!
Chris: Cool. Thanks guys. These chats are fun. Especially the parts we can’t print.
After reading the recent post “Honest Labour – the Column that Named the Book,” I wanted to recent the whole of Thomas Dekker’s poem. Did you? Here it is.
In case you missed the original post you can read it here.
Not sure if Chris Schwarz had read the poem, so I forwarded it to him. A copy of the poem now hangs in the art gallery that is also known as the men’s restroom at the Lost Art Press Storefront (sigh).
If you seek to improve your mind during these trying times, Ed Sutton at FirstLightWorks has an excellent diversion for you: a free downloadable sector and instruction sheet.
To get started, click here to visit the page at FirstLightWorks where you can download the plan for the sector and the instructions. Then you just have to print it out, cut it out, assemble it and take it for a spin.
As we near the home stretch on our forthcoming book about kitchens, we thought it would be fun to publish a series of posts about a kitchen remodel on which I’m now working. You can read the first post here. Upcoming posts will discuss aesthetic dimensions, sources of hardware and other products, etc.
Stepping up together (by staying apart — Construction Man looks like he’d rather his friends stay at a proper distance) (Image: Library of Congress)
At the start of this kitchen project, the contractor, clients and I scheduled the work onsite for June, when Jenny and Ben would be in Austria in connection with Ben’s job. Then came covid-19. There may be no trip to Europe.
As veterans of many a kitchen remodel done with customers living in their home, Mark and I have ways of minimizing the pain. These include:
dust collection for power tools
dust barriers between the work area and the rest of the house (This includes covering HVAC vents to minimize the spread of dust through that system.)
floor mats (such as this one) that pick up dirt to keep it from being tracked out of the job area
clean up at the end of each day
a temporary kitchen set-up with a sink and counter (or table). We move the fridge into another room so it can keep storing food. A hotplate, crock pot and toaster oven will cook most meals. An outside grill will even make cooking fun.
We’re still set for June, though at this point all plans are subject to change if someone gets sick — or if the government imposes a directive to shelter in place. Even without such a directive, Mark and I have changed how we do business in the interest of minimizing contact with others.
Evidence of creativity from kids cooped up at home: Cats of all sorts hang from the ceiling.
As bars, restaurants and businesses with potential to disrupt supply lines have been shutting down en masse in response to the pandemic, it occurred to me that I should get as many of the materials as possible in hand without delay, in case my suppliers have to cease operations for several weeks. So yesterday, after confirming that Ben and Jenny were ready to go forward, I put together my primary materials orders and called them in — the solid wood and sheet goods order to Frank Miller Lumber, the hinges, drawer slides and blind corner storage unit to Richelieu Hardware, two of my most dependable suppliers for more than 15 years. At least this way I should be able to stay working and keep the job on track.
Existing cabinets: Should they stay or should they go?
In an ideal world, x-ray vision would enable us to see through cabinets, counters, walls and other solid materials to determine the location of ducts, electrical wires, gas and water lines and other things with potential to throw a wrench in the works. Locating such objects is especially important when you’re reworking the layout of a room; you need to assess whether your design can in fact be implemented. (While it’s true that anything can in principle be changed, the budget available for a job usually plays a big part in determining what “can” and “cannot” happen.)
To keep the household cooking without interruption for as long as possible, we’re leaving the existing kitchen intact for now. The basic layout of the cabinets will stay the same, so there’s no mystery about rerouting services. But there was one area I wanted to check before I start cutting parts for the new cabinets, the framed-up structure that housed the wall oven housing — just to make sure there was no surprise lurking inside. So yesterday Mark and I took out the wall oven (which no longer worked) and excavated a small portion of the wall to confirm there was nothing there beyond studs and plaster on metal lath. Before pulling the oven, Mark removed the appropriate fuse (yes, the house still has fuses, not breakers; installing a new panel will be part of the project) and covered the wires with wire nuts. After cleaning up the debris, he screwed a scrap of plywood over the over-sized hole to keep the resident kittens from potentially perilous exploration.
I hacked into the corner of the wall with the claw of a hammer to find out whether we’d be dealing with drywall or plaster. Meanwhile, aided by an invaluable headlamp, Mark used a multi-tool to cut a hole in the side of the oven housing for access to the wall. (Why not move the fridge out? you may wonder. The floor in front of it was packed with everyday stuff, and the table was covered in boxes of the cabinet’s former contents. It was easier to go through the cabinet side.)
The other structural detail we needed to check involved the staircase. Between the living room and the kitchen there’s a passageway about three-feet wide — plenty of space to move through easily, in theory. But in this case, the stairs to the basement loom like a chasm on one side. While the stairway poses no actual danger, it’s close enough to provoke a slight sense of risk — the kind of distinct yet largely subconscious discomfort that kitchen designer Johnny Grey has argued — convincingly — should be avoided.
Before. Picture yourself standing in the spot where I took this shot. Immediately to your left would be a gaping chasm — the stairway to the basement.
It’s not feasible to relocate the staircase as part of this project, but it occurred to me early on that it might be possible to shift the stairs forward by the width of one tread, and so add almost a foot to this narrow passage to make this traverse a bit more comfortable. Shifting the stairs would require raising the wall above the staircase base (see the image below) to gain the headroom code requires. This wall, however, is a major support for the roof, so I wanted Mark to take a good look at how it relates to its surroundings and determine whether he’d be able to modify it. (Before you think about modifying a wall of this sort it’s essential to consult someone who can assess the structural ramifications. I often refer clients to a structural engineer, but in this case, Mark has the insight required.) He gave the green light (which has nothing to do with the green circle of the mobile that hangs above).
Mark checks headroom to confirm that he can rework the staircase, thereby widening the floor at the entry to the kitchen by about 10″.
I’m waiting for the lumber delivery as I write this post. Next up: Building the cabinets.
