John Brown and Anne (now Sears) at Pantry Fields with the tractor that JB used to power his band saw.
The reason I make chairs is because I like to do it, therefore if I can do more of it I have more pleasure. I sell some chairs by word of mouth recommendation, by repeats or to friends or existing customers. In the last four or five years I have sold every chair I made. There are times when I could have sold more. Sometimes I don’t work as hard as I should. I still have no money, I’m always waiting for the next cheque, and I suspect I always will be, but I don’t worry. The difference between starvation and plenty is one chair.
— John Brown, Issue 28 of Good Woodworking magazine
DIY initials have entered our language. I remember being lost near Cardiff one day. I stopped to ask a local for directions. “Straight up, turn left at the Crown, than after a mile look on your left for a large Don’t Involve Yourself store – it’s just past there.”
— John Brown, Issue 27 of Good Woodworking magazine
Two of John Brown’s chairs at Country Workshops. Photo courtesy of Drew Langsner.
During the last two weeks I have been deep into designing Chris Williams’s book on John Brown. It’s great to see all these years of work from people all over the world come together on the page.
In addition to Chris’s detailed account of his life with John Brown and all the important details on chair construction, the book features essays from other important voices in John Brown’s chairmaking life. Anne Sears, JB’s wife while at Pantry Fields; David Sears, a nephew who built chairs with JB at Pantry Fields; Matty Sears, one of JB’s sons who made chairmaking tools for his dad; and Nick Gibbs, the editor who hired John Brown to write a column for Good Woodworking. We’re also using many linocut illustrations made by Molly Brown, one of JB’s daughters.
On top of all that, we have purchased the rights to publish 20 of John Brown’s best magazine columns. I’ve just finished laying out that chapter, and it’s 72 pages long – almost a novella. As a result, I’ve pulled a few choice quotes that I’ll publish here this week in an attempt to give you a taste of JB’s writing.
This leads me on to gripe about some of the woodworkers I come across. I hope you will forgive my opinion. When I talk to readers or get letters it often seems to be about the petty cash of woodwork (technical points about dovetails or getting joints to fit), but rarely about shape, proportion or colour. I don’t think joints are that important. I would prefer to see woodworkers look at the total picture, is the piece they have just made beautiful, will it hold together, will it do the job it was made for?
Woodworkers don’t buy my chairs, but they spend ages looking at the details of construction and then frown disapprovingly. They want engineering perfection. People who buy my chairs do so for two main reasons. Firstly and by far the most important point, they buy because they like the look of them. Secondly they buy them because they like sitting in them. They rarely inspect the joints. They think they look good, they think they will do the job they are made to do and even though the parts don’t fit particularly well, they are strong enough!
The book should be off to the printer in January and released by March. I’ll have more details as they become available.
Peter Follansbee is wrapping up his carved box class here tonight, but has decided to stay through tomorrow so that he can be here for the last open house of the year (and anyway, it might take until tomorrow morning to clean up…). We have his two books – “Joiner’s Work” and “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” (co-authored with Jennie Alexander) – in stock here, and he’ll be happy to sign them.
And a special offer: During a rare fit of cleaning and organizing my home office, I found an extra copy of “Joint Stool” with a book plate in the front signed by both Peter and Jennie (who is no longer with us), and I’m giving it away to one lucky winner from among tomorrow’s open house attendees. We’ll have slips to fill out, and Peter will draw the winner from amongst the entries at 4 p.m. (You needn’t stick around until 4 p.m. unless you want to – I’ll mail the book to the winner if need be).
I’m also pleased to announce that Nancy Hiller is planning to visit from Bloomington – barring inclement weather, she’ll be here at around 11 a.m.! We have plenty of the new edition of her “Making Things Work: Tales from a Cabinetmaker’s Life” on hand, and she, too, will be happy to sign them, for as long as she’s able to stay.
Also: Ask to see the clock, eat cookies (made by professional cook Terry West, aka Chris’ mom), ask woodworking questions and try out tools.
Doors open at 10 a.m. (and close at 5 p.m.): 837 Willard St., Covington, Ky., 41011.
Last week I built a second Irish Gibson chair while Narayan Nayar photographed the construction process.
Though this chair has its faults, it’s much closer in appearance and construction to the originals I studied at Mark Jenkinson’s place this fall. Mark and I are planning a short book on this chair that will be along the lines of John Brown’s “Welsh Stick Chairs” book. But that project will take a little time to research – plus I want to first build another dozen of these chairs.
I’m fairly happy with the construction process I’ve devised for these chairs. Making a Gibson is an easy chairmaking experience – perfect for the beginner. And that’s what makes this project particularly exciting.
I built this chair with only two electric tools: a small band saw and a battery drill. No shavehorse, lathe, drawknife, adze, scorp or travisher. No steambending or green woodworking. Every operation was done at a standard workbench with few specialty tools (a couple tenon cutters are helpful but not necessary).
The legs and sticks are sawn out (with special effort to get dead-straight grain) and then shaped with a jack plane and a block plane. The tenons can be shaped with a block plane or you can use a tenon cutter to speed the process.
The arms and seat are sawn out and shaped with a rasp and a spokeshave. The crest is glued up from three sticks of maple, sawn out on the band saw and then shaped with rasps and a scraper. (The crests of original Gibsons seem to have been cut from one huge chunk of wood – no laminations. I couldn’t get wood of that size at our lumberyard.)
I chose this tool set after looking at the tool marks on original Gibsons, which (we strongly think) were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I found evidence of band saw marks and circular saw marks. The facets on the legs and sticks are clearly shaped by hand – not with a lathe. It could have been done with a drawknife, but I suspect that handplanes were just as likely to be used – especially to make the flats on the sticks for the back.
What’s wrong with my chair? I split one of the arms during assembly. One of the features of the Gibson is how two of back sticks are notched into the arms. The tension between the stick and the arm helps stabilize the chair. I added too much tension. Way too much tension, actually. Now I know what is too much and can dial it back for the next chairs.
Also, the back sticks seem a little thin to my eye. I probably shaved them a bit too much and need to start with wood that is 1/16” or 1/8” oversized in width and thickness.
But the chair sits well. The broken arm is repaired. And paint did the rest of the job.
