Yesterday I went to our local Tandy Leather store and got a crash course in leatherwork from one of the guys at the store who makes gear and armor for re-enactors. Yup, I’ve decided to make the leather seats for the Roorkhee chairs from scratch.
Well, almost scratch, I didn’t raise the cows or murder them.
There is a surprising amount of overlap between the crafts of leather and wood. Sharp tools. Shaping curves using moisture. Dyes. Finishes. Metal hardware. After all, in both crafts we’re dealing with a fibrous, natural material. One just happens to have roots. The other one moos.
I’ve done some basic leatherwork before – covering an ottoman with pigskin, recovering spring seats for side chairs etc. But nothing this involved. But it looks like fun and these sling seats are a good beginner project.
I bought three unfinished skins, which should be more than enough for two chairs. I wanted to have enough to make a few mistakes. And I want to make some Anarchist underwear – whipstitching and rivets all around.
With a mighty (OK, a wussy) whuppin’, I assembled two frames for these Roorkhee chairs. All in all, they aren’t bad. Only one joint out of the two chairs keeps popping out. I’ll fix its wagon in the morning.
Tomorrow I’ll clean them up and finish them with shellac. Then it’s off to the upholstery person, whoever that is. I still haven’t been able to get a shop to return my phone calls. Perhaps I need a sexier voice.
After I got the first chair frame assembled, I put down my dead-blow mallet for a minute because I was stunned by something I hadn’t seen before. The frame is the spitting image of an Egyptian bed from one of Geoffrey Killen’s books on Egyptian furniture and woodworking tools. I cannot put my finger on the book this evening. (Note to self: Cane the librarian yet again.)
In the meantime, I was amused to receive a poem about Roorkhee chairs and the J Lo “too much junk in the trunk” problem that some of us suffer from. I will warn you, there are a couple adult words in this ode, so don’t read it aloud in Sunday School, OK?
— Christopher Schwarz
Madam, over here is a chair called a Roorkhee,
not hard to pronounce, rhymes with dorky.
Roam the world and sit unflappable,
‘cuz the damn thing is quite collapsible.
This chair is not for me it would seem,
I am much too broad ‘cross the beam.
Yes, madam, he said with a sigh,
I can see you are really quite wide.
These curves I have are my problem,
Too much here, there, and a big bottom.
But, madam you must not despair!
The Roorkhee is your kind of chair.
For you it is eminently suitable
it has the quality of being scootchable!
Take a seat and alack and alas,
the Roorkhee can handle your ass !
One of the things I most like about making furniture is something that’s rarely talked about: It is a lot like being a 15th-century explorer.
You sometimes venture into places that you think are new and untouched, but like the Genoese, you find that people have already been there and built great things. What you do next could make or break your piece’s design.
As I’m building these Roorkhee chairs I’m using an original as a pattern and trying to stay as close as possible to the vintage lines, materials and measurements. As I turned the legs, I found that the cylinder shape near the top of the legs is not just decorative and it’s not just intended to reduce the weight of the piece.
It is, instead, a perfect grip for the human hand. The cylinder on the original is 1-1/4” in diameter and 3” long, with a wide bevel at the top and bottom (which is no fun to turn, by the way). When complete, this grip makes it easy to pick up the assembled chair and move it. Brilliant.
Modern interpretations of the Roorkhee have stunted this cylinder or turned it into a vase-like turning that isn’t easy to grab or hold. Stupid moderns.
Another good detail: The original chairs are exactly as deep as they are wide. This allows all the rails to be interchangeable. So when you assemble your Roorkhee in camp you don’t have to label your parts – tab A into slot B. No matter how you assemble it, it always comes out the same. Newer commercial versions of the chair add width but not depth. This requires the user to pay more attention when assembling the chair.
And this is the point in the project at which I think I must depart from the original. The original chair has 16-1/2” of space between the legs. Stop reading for a minute, pick up your tape measure and determine how wide you are at the hips. I’m 15” wide. That would give me 3/4” of space on either side of a traditional Roorkhee.
When I build stick chairs, I have always used about 18” between the spindles or legs of the chair. When I build Morris chairs, it’s usually about 23” of space. My gut says I should make these chairs have 18” to 19” space between the legs. It is, after all, designed for lounging.
But my gut can be wrong, like when I thought it would be a good idea to eat one more seafood sausage. So I’m going to make a version with 16-1/2” between the legs – but I’m going to use cheap poplar dowels for the rails.
Then we’ll see if my gut fits. Literally.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. As I wrote this blog entry I kept thinking how furniture could be an “undiscovered country.” To impress Megan Fitzpatrick, I thought I’d trot out the Bill Shakespeare quote about that from Hamlet:
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?
But that’s not me. I have less culture than a petri dish at the CDC. This is more my (lack of) style.
This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man – where no one – has gone before.
I get this sort of flack below almost every day. I usually ignore it. But in this case I want to be perfectly clear about how I work and how I have always worked.
Comment from Gary Smythe on the PW blog: I’ve been following this project from your first announcement. With all respect, your comments about not letting the price of hardware/wood be of concern are not fair. You are doing an article for a national magazine and the advantage of getting it published is that it is an expense that costs you nothing either by expense account or a tax write off. Secondly, how many donations were involved? Honestly, I wish you the best, and I’m looking forward to the article, but I bet you didn’t pay $15 for the Londonderry Catalog. I know that the $300 book on Campaign Furniture was donated to you. You are a skilled craftsman/author. I just feel for the audience you are writing for, true costs ought to be revealed. $700 is the tip of the iceberg. I’m guessing this item for the article on the campaign piece is worth $6000 by the time we figure your material costs and at least part of your time in the design and build. I’ll have to read the article to finnd out if any new tools were involved. Writing/photography is in addition to that. Bring it on, I want to see what you made, but please don’t tell us about the vastly inferior underweight hardware as an alternative – It’s embarrassing. If considering using most of that stuff, it might as well not be used at all. Keep this up and the next thing will be an article about a reproduction Tansu chest, but don’t worry about the Paulownia and hardware cost.
OK, let’s break down the letter, point by point.
“You are doing an article for a national magazine and the advantage of getting it published is that it is an expense that costs you nothing either by expense account or a tax write off.”
I have no expense account. I personally paid for the wood, the hardware and the finish. The piece was not built for a customer. It’s mine. It’s not a tax write-off. So I built a piece of furniture for myself and paid for all the materials myself. The article earned me some money, of course, but not even close to what the materials and hardware cost.
“Secondly, how many donations were involved?”
None. I paid full retail for every scrap of wood, hardware and finish. I always have and I always will. Call Steve Wall Lumber, where I bought the wood. Call Horton Brasses, where I bought the hardware. Call Oakley Paint & Glass, where I bought the finish.
“I bet you didn’t pay $15 for the Londonderry Catalog.”
You are right. I don’t have a Londonderry Catalog in my house. I’ve never even seen one. I looked on the company’s web site, which is free. Call Nancy at Londonderry for confirmation.
“I know that the $300 book on Campaign Furniture was donated to you.”
Not true. I paid $100 for the book plus a couple T-shirts from a local woodworker who knew I was interested in the style. Want to see the cancelled check?
“I’ll have to read the article to finnd out if any new tools were involved.”
Huh? None.
“I’m guessing this item for the article on the campaign piece is worth $6000 by the time we figure your material costs and at least part of your time in the design and build.”
Are you saying I was paid $6,000? Wish that were true. Not even close Way, way lower.
“Writing/photography is in addition to that.”
I do my own writing and photography. So I didn’t pay anyone for that. Perhaps I am not following you.
“Bring it on, I want to see what you made.”
Come on over. My home address is on our web site. I’ll show you every receipt.
English Roorkhee chairs are one of the missing links of modern chair design.
The form has its roots in the 19th-century late-Victorian era of the British Empire. It was the symbol of the changing nature of war (it’s lightweight and quick to pack). And its simple lines influenced generations of chair designers, from Marcel Breuer to the person who developed the ubiquitous camping chair.
I started building a run of these chairs on Tuesday for an upcoming article in Popular Woodworking Magazine and a forthcoming book on campaign furniture. My version is based closely on an historical example – many modern versions are skimpier and have joinery that is unnecessarily complex or just silly (more on that later).
This Roorkhee (rhymes with “dorky”) chair has conical tenons and mortises. And all the stretchers are the same length so they are interchangeable. Also a plus: The seat slopes down from the front of the chair to the back. That makes it nice for lounging. Some of the historical examples I studied had horizontal seats or even seats that sloped forward – perhaps to help keep you awake or to allow you spring from the chair for battle.
As I have no battles planned for 2013, I chose the version that is best for a beer or cigar after safari.
My joinery design is indebted to Greg Miller, a woodworker in Australia who built many of these chairs commercially. He shared his tricks for the joinery and his leg layouts with me.
I should have the chairs all framed up by Friday and finished by Saturday. So here is the plea for help: If there are any leather workers out there who could do the seat and back (for pay, of course), drop me a line this week at chris@lostartpress.com. Otherwise, I’ll head up to our local leather store – they have kindly offered to help me out.
And now down to the shop. I have mortises to bore.
