As a reminder, Sean and his brother, Simon Clarke, are the second generation to run Christopher Clarke Antiques, in Stow-on-the-Wold, England. Sean and Simon, who helped Christopher Schwarz with his research when writing “Campaign Furniture,” are considered leading historians of campaign furniture.
In this lecture, Sean covers the history of campaign furniture during the golden period for portable furniture, the many different types of British and Irish makers, those who used campaign furniture and its eventual demise.
Sean notes that wealth and rank mattered, and how well your tent was fitted out was a good sign of your social standing.
“There was the opinion that the better prepared you were, the better you would do your job, so camp comforts were a necessity,” he says.
He quotes from a lieutenant’s diary, written in 1813 during the Peninsular War, about the need to equip one’s self with 600 pounds of personal baggage. “The more an officer makes himself comfortable, the better will he do his duty, as well as secure his own health, and the comfort of those belonging to him. It does not follow, that because we attempt the best in every situation, that we cannot face the worst.”
Later in the lecture Sean shares this cartoon, drawn by A.S. Boyd, published in “The Graphic” on October 19, 1901. The soldiers are weighted down by their furniture and personal items, which in the illustrations includes everything from a grandfather clock and a piano to a cradle and lawnmower.
The great joy in this lecture is the many clever examples of ingenuity in the metamorphic furniture shown. Consider the patents alone. Before 1866, Sean says there were 28 patents for chairs. Between 1866 and 1900, 306 patents existed for folding chairs alone.
In this lecture you’ll see a late 18th century mahogany cylinder bureau bookcase that, at first glance, you’d never guess would break down – but it does, considerably. A four poster patent screw bed by Thomas Butler, circa 1800, that is easily set up or taken down without screws, nuts or bolts, and even has a canopy for mosquitos when hot or drapes when cold. There’s a mahogany Naval bureau from 1750-80 with a top that comes off allowing the bottom to become a temporary operating table if needed.
The Victorians broadened the campaign furniture market, building furniture such as the Thornhill Patent Games Table, circa 1910, which easily folds into a small suitcase and could be used at home, in the garden or while on picnics. Sean points out that a plastic version of Thornhill’s folding picnic table and benches can still be found in most camping shops today. And, of course, the Roorkhee Chair is the predecessor to the folding chairs we take to our children’s sporting events, minus the cup holder (and elegance).
I am teaching one class in 2022 – a comb-back stick chair class at the Florida School of Woodwork in Tampa, Fla. The class runs Feb. 14-18, 2022. You can sign up and read the details here.
All my proceeds from the class are being donated to the scholarship program for the school to fund classes for people who cannot afford tuition. You can read more about that here and apply for a grant.
Additionally, we are offering one full scholarship to this chair class for a female-identifying, non-binary or BIPOC student. You can apply for that scholarship via this link.
The Florida School of Woodwork is a great place to take a class. Kate Swann does a fantastic job of running a welcoming school. There are good workbenches, tons of good light and February is beautiful in Florida. While all of us will be building a comb-back chair, there will be lots of opportunities to personalize your chair. I’ll be bringing lots of templates so you can use different arms, hands, stretchers and combs.
I have one of these stools, and use it every year at my neighborhood’s storied Fourth of July Parade and other community events. And it’s seen almost weekly use at outdoor gatherings during the last 18 months or so – the addition of a carrying strap made it particularly comfortable and convenient to sling over my shoulder as I walked to various neighbor’s houses for socially distanced gatherings; the strap left my hands free for carrying bourbon.)
— Fitz
Three-legged folding stools appear in many Western cultures, including the French, English and American. They have been popular with soldiers, sportsmen, campers and artists for at least two centuries.
This stool is a great introductory project to campaign furniture, especially if you are new to turning or working with leather. There are only three pieces of wood, four pieces of leather and some metal hardware. You can easily build one in a day.
Choosing Materials I have seen some of these camp stools built using dowels, and they are strong enough to hold most people. However, I like to build them from mahogany, teak or ash that has dead-straight grain. I’ve had nightmares about getting a stick stuck in my backside from a stool disaster.
If you can build the stool with riven stock (oak or ash are good choices), it will be quite strong. Many original stools used 1″-diameter legs. However, my recommendation is to use stouter stock. I have built reproductions with 1″-diameter legs, and they felt too springy under my 185-pound frame.
You don’t need to make the legs baseball bats, but try for something between 1-1/8″ diameter to 1-1/4″ diameter. The leather can be almost anything 7 ounces (just shy of 1/8″ thick) or heavier. Vegetable-tanned leather that you dye yourself is a particularly strong choice.
You also will need rivets to join the leather pieces – unless you are skilled at hand-stitching. While hollow rivets (sometimes called rapid rivets) are inexpensive, easy to find and strong enough, I prefer the look and unerring permanence of solid copper rivets. I used No. 9 rivets with posts that are 1/2″ long.
To attach the leather to the wooden legs, you’ll need three No. 10 x 1-1/2″-long brass screws plus matching finishing washers.
Finally, you’ll need the hardware that allows the legs to open and shut. Traditionally, this was a three-headed bolt that once was easy to find. Now, that hardware is rare in North America. If you are a blacksmith or have access to a good welder, making a three-way bolt is straightforward. I have seen a couple of these bolts for sale in England, but the price with shipping to the United States was more than the cost of the bolt itself.
So I looked for a different way. Luckily, the Internet is good for something other than photos of cats playing keyboards. One maker of custom stools uses some off-the rack hardware to make an effective three-way bolt and shares that information freely on his web site.
Here’s what you need for legs that are up to 1-1/4″ in diameter:
• A hex-headed bolt with a 5/16″ shank that is long enough to pass through two of the legs and protrude out the other side by 1/2″. A 3″-long hex-head bolt will work with 1-3/16″-diameter legs. • An eyebolt with a 1/4″ or 5/16″ shank that is long enough to pass through one of the legs and protrude out the other side by 1/4″. (Note: You can hacksaw any of this threaded hardware to length. An eyebolt that has a total length of 2-1/2″ should be sufficient.) • Two acorn-headed nuts. • Three washers. • 15 No. 9 copper rivets.
Parts • 2 Legs, 1-1/4″ dia. x 23-3/4″ l • 1 Seat, 7 oz., 13-1/2″ w x 13-1/2″ l • 3 Lips, 7 oz., 3″ w x 8″ l
Turn the Legs The three legs are easy to turn, even if your favorite turning tool is #80-grit sandpaper. Turn the legs to round using a roughing gouge or carbide-tipped roughing tool. Create a smooth, clean cylinder of about 1-1/4″ in diameter with a skew or other finishing tool.
The feet shown are 1-3/16″ in diameter and 5/8″ tall. Make the feet by turning down the foot. Then turn the ankle to 7/8″ in diameter. Round the foot, then taper the rest of the leg down to the ankle. The taper should begin 6″ from the bottom of the leg.
A bulbous foot. The foot can be almost any shape, from a bead similar to the foot of the Roorkee to this teardrop.
I added four small grooves where the hardware holes will go – two above the hardware and two below. Little details such as these grooves and beads make the legs look like something fancier than three store-bought dowels.
Not original. These little grooves add some visual interest to the joint. However, they’re not a detail I found on any original stool. So skip them if you are going for authenticity.
Sand the legs to remove any rough tool marks. I finished the legs on the lathe. First I burnished the surface with a “polissoir” (a French polishing tool made from tightly bound broom corn). Then I applied beeswax to the legs with the workpiece spinning. I used the polissoir to drive the beeswax into the pores of the wood (again, while the lathe was spinning). Then I used a rough cotton cloth (I’d like to be fancy and say it was muslin, but it was an old bag that held corn grits) to buff the wax. Then I applied another coat of wax and buffed that.
If you want to add a little age to the wood, apply a coat of black wax and push it into the grooves and pores. Let the wax set up then buff it.
Wax is not a permanent finish, but it is easily renewed or repaired if your stool is for the drawing room instead of the campsite.
Leg Elevation
Seat Plan
Lips Plan
Bore Three Holes All three holes are located in the same spot on each of the three legs and should be the same diameter – just big enough to allow the hardware to pass through. The holes are located 11-5/8″ down from the top of the legs.
The best way to bore these holes is with a drill press or hand-powered post drill. You want the hole to be dead straight and pass through the middle of the leg. If you are a whiz with a hand drill or cordless drill then go for it.
Dead center. The holes for the hardware need to be bored through the middle so the leg isn’t weak. A cradle helps hold the legs for drilling, no matter how you make the hole. Drill the hole so the brad point of the bit barely pokes through the leg (right). Rotate the leg so the tiny hole left from the brad point is facing up. Finish the hole.
Install the Hardware Strip the hardware of its zinc if you like – I use a citric acid solution for this. Here’s how the hardware goes together:
• Put a washer on the bolt. Push the bolt through one leg. • Place the eyebolt on the post of the bolt. Put the other leg on the bolt. • Add a washer to the end of the bolt, then drive on the acorn nut. • Push the post of the eyebolt through the third leg. Add a washer and acorn nut.
Drill pilot holes that are deep enough to receive the No. 10 screws into the top ends of the legs.
Common hardware. The bolt, eyebolt, washers and nuts are all items found easily at a half-decent hardware store.
Leather Seat The seat is four pieces of material: a triangular seat and three pockets that look a bit like lips when you cut them out. When I cut out leather, I make patterns for my pieces from thin MDF or hardboard – usually 1/4″-thick material.
Knife work. You will probably make more than one stool, so make plywood patterns of the seat parts and cut them out using a sharp utility knife.
Put the patterns on the leather and cut out the seat and three lips using a sharp utility knife.
You can hand-stitch the lips to the seat. If you aren’t up for stitching, rivets work well and give the project a military flair.
First punch. Using a leather punch, make a hole through the seat and pocket piece. I’m using a kitchen cutting board as a backer.
Secure each lip to the seat first with one rivet at one of the tips of the seat. Punch a snug hole for the rivet through both pieces of leather, drive on the washer or “burr,” snip off the excess and peen the post over the burr.
Insert the rivet. Put the rivet through the holes. The flat face of the rivet should be on the top surface of the seat.
Now bend one end of the lip up and rivet the end to the seat about 1/4″ from the end of the lip. Repeat for the other end of the lip. Finally, add two more rivets between the three existing rivets. Repeat the whole process for the other two corners.
Like a washer. The “burr” part of a traditional rivet is what pinches the leather. Place it over the post. Then drive it on the post with a rivet setter.
One quick note on neatness: Be sure to put the burr so it faces the floor for all these joints.
After the pockets are riveted, use a sharp utility knife to trim any little bits of the pocket that aren’t flush to the seat.
If you purchased undyed leather, finish the leather with a dye, oil and wax. Burnish the edges with a piece of wood and a little spit (water will do nicely as well).
Attach the seat to the legs. Punch a clearance hole through each lip that will allow a No. 10 screw to pass. Screw the leather to the legs with a finishing washer under the head of each screw.
That’s all there is to it. You can make the tool easy to transport by making a belt that will go around the girth of the closed stool and screwing that belt to one leg. Or you could make a canvas bag embroidered with your football team’s logo. After all, when going into battle, it’s always best to fly your colors.
Most modern Windsor chairmakers, myself included, can make a side chair in about 30 hours. Two hundred years ago, chairmakers worked at five times that speed. Their shops were smaller than ours, their tools were simpler, they had fewer jigs and no electricity. How did they do it?
I spent the last month traveling to museums to study old chairs, chairmaking tools, and chair parts that never made it into a chair. Samuel Wing’s half-finished chair seats at Old Sturbridge Village, Mass., reveal the exact order of the sawing, planing, drawknifing and hollowing steps he used to carve a seat in 1810. A loop back chair at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, stamped “WING”, shows subtle marks in its bow from a bending form or drying rack, suggesting how it was bent.
I intend to make two-dozen copies of the Independence Hall chair. I will use the same tools and techniques that the original chairmaker used, as best I can discern them. I will try to make all two-dozen chairs in 140 hours. I have no idea if I can do that, but I will try. And I will write a book about my process, about how the chair is built, how the tools work. There will be lots of photos too. It should be fun.
But first, you must understand something important: I am not embarking on a race. If you watch old chairmaking videos from the ‘30s, the workers aren’t moving particularly fast. In fact, they look half bored. The cameraman holds more of their attention than their work does, yet the work gets done in a trice.
Good speed comes from knowledge. It comes from knowing where you are going and the most efficient way of getting there. From knowing how to use your body and how far to push each tool. From freeing your mind from useless details. Most of all, it comes from repetition. From doing the same thing repeatedly, endlessly, till your brain turns off and your body keeps doing the work – and the work is better for it. This is how I want to work.
I’m excited to say that Lost Art Press is publishing the book. For now we’re calling it “Built For Speed: An Exploration of 19th-century Chairmaking.” I’ll soon be building a few prototype chairs to memorize the process, but first I need to make a better spring pole lathe (maybe based on the Dominy lathe), learn how octagonal leg tenons can be driven into a pine seat, and get Bill Anderson to make me a moulding plane. You can follow my progress on my blog. Happy chairmaking!
Though I am done writing books on workbenches (scout’s honor), I am always on the lookout for interesting historical examples and clever features that I can use in the future.
This week I spotted one that was particularly interesting. I’m calling it the “Baby Deadman,” which is the most horrible name I have ever given anything in this world (including the time I tried to name a cat “Kilgore Trout”).
The bench shown above is featured in “The Cabinetmaker’s Art in Ontario: Circa 1850-1900” by Lilly A. Koltun, published in 1979 by the National Museums of Canada. Researcher Suzanne Ellison recently dug it up using her superpowers. Download the pdf here.
The paper is a biography and shop inventory of Francis Jones of Middlesex County, who made furniture (and dealt in farm implements and undertaking) during the second half of the 19th century.
The section on the workbench notes that its top is 21-1/2” x 78” and the bench is 34-1/2” high. Unusually, the bench has a tail vise, but it doesn’t appear to have a series of dog holes on the top. It does have a metal planing stop (barely visible) which is mentioned in the inventory. And a nice holdfast.
I was struck by the two sliding board jacks (sometimes called a “deadman”). The large one is typical. But the small one on top is unusual and ingenious. Here’s why: I built my first board jack in about 2001, and it’s great for holding large panels and residential doors on edge. But most of my work doesn’t need the full capacity of the jack. Mostly, I just want a movable peg that will help support boards as I edge-joint them.
This bench gives you both.
In fact, I might consider adding only the smaller Baby Board Jack (now THAT’s a better name) to one of our existing benches to fool around with it.
