A Welsh side chair/back stool made by John Porritt. In an April 6-10, 2020, class, students will make their own versions of this traditional form.
John Porritt, a woodworker who trained in the U.K. – and who had one of his chairs praised by John Brown in a Good Woodworking column! – is coming to Covington April 6-10, 2020, to teach a side chair (also known as a backstool) class, and we could not be more excited. In addition to making chairs, John is amazing at repair and color work, and he has restored tools for Jim Bode, Martin Donnelly, Lee Richmond and many collectors both here and abroad. He’s one of the traditional chairmakers Christopher Schwarz wishes he had found 20 years sooner. (You can read more about him in this post from Chris.)
This is not a class for beginning woodworkers – though if you’re confident in your sharpening skills and use of basic bench tools, you’ll be fine (you needn’t be an accomplished chairmaker).
Each student (it will, as usual, be limited to six) will make his or her own version of this traditional Welsh chair out of air-dried elm and ash, which is to say there’s some room for expression. John will, as he writes, discuss “the aesthetics and elements that line, skill, happenstance, materials and luck produce,” and students will use those within the constraints of the form to build their own chairs.
I asked John his thought on the craft to help me better write a class description – but I love the inherent tension in what he said, so I’m offering his thoughts verbatim instead:
Some thoughts on ways of making and seeing Welsh stick chairs.
• To be inspired by the past whilst using the training, tools and eye of a 21st-century artisan – to make something of now.
• To make with a view to getting a flavour of the old, with fewer tools, trying to step into the shoes of the older makers, emulating their speed or leisure, tool marks, and lack of machine culture to produce an object that time will age.
• To produce a chair that is essentially an old chair, aging wood surfaces and paint, introducing distress and wear. Could be called a reproduction, a fake, an homage, probably a few other things too! This is almost impossible as something of today is invariably there. Should it be by chance a great fake, time will uncover it as artificially aged surfaces will change over time differently to natural age. But like the old adage, ‘you can fool some of the people some of the time…’
• Do what you want, but be honest with yourself. You’ll know what you have or haven’t achieved.
For me, these 4 approaches are equally valid, will appeal to different people, and all can – when done well – reach across to another human being to appreciate, enjoy, and maybe even purchase. This is important.
I wrote about these in August. They are still awesome and I still use them every chance I get.
Why am I writing this, then? To tell you not to bother ordering them from the Two Cherries website. I ordered some, they charged my card but the pencils never arrived – Pencilgate. So if you want them, I recommend Tools for Working Wood. They won’t let you down (and the pencils are the same price when purchased direct from Two Cherries).
Fantastic pencils. Great lead. Great wood. Perfect balance and feel in the hand.
— Christopher Schwarz
Disclaimer: We buy all of our tools. We don’t accept advertising or sponsorships. We are not part of any affiliate program. We don’t make any money if you buy these items. We just like these tools.
Editor’s note: I usually start this gift guide in November, but November got away from me. Apologies. I started this guide after my kids began asking me what I wanted for Christmas. Some of the suggestions I gave them ($3 Bessey mini clamps, blue tape etc.) were so useful and appreciated I thought that others might agree.
I’ve always had a cork sanding block. It’s such a crucial part of my tool kit that sometimes I forget about it.
Cork blocks are useful as a backing material when hand sanding. If you hold the paper with your fingers only, the wood is unlikely to feel flat after you sand it. If, on the other hand, you use a rigid plastic or hardwood block to back up your sandpaper, you will have to work long and hard to get the surface feeling flat.
Cork is the perfect middle ground. It is rigid enough that the wood feels flat. Yet it has enough give that you can follow the hills and valleys of a large surface and get the job done quickly.
Where should you buy cork sanding blocks? Good question.
My old boss made me one from a piece of 3/4” plywood where one surface was covered with adhesive cork – the kind you line kitchen drawers with. It works OK. The better tool is a piece of solid cork. The block I use measures 1” thick, 2-1/2” wide and 7” long. You can wrap a 6” sanding disk around it (we don’t bother with sheets of sandpaper here because we don’t use much of it).
Finding cork blocks for sale on the internet is all about paying insane amounts of money for shipping. Your best bet is to buy a block from a local woodworking store, where you’ll pay about $6 to $10. You are probably paying too much, but the blocks don’t wear out or go bad.
Another option is to buy a cork “yoga block.” These typically measure 4” x 6” x 9” and you can get one for less than $20. Then you can cut them down to whatever size you like (using woodworking tools). And you can make some for your friends, too.
— Christopher Schwarz
Disclaimer: We buy all of our tools. We don’t accept advertising or sponsorships. We are not part of any affiliate program. We don’t make any money if you buy these items. We just like these tools.
I’m in Roorkhee chair production mode this weekend. I have two chairs that need to go to a (very patient) customer in December. And I have enough material to eek out a couple more chairs – if I don’t make any mistakes.
(Hey, I might get to keep one of these chairs for myself. Or I can sell it and help pay my daughter’s tuition.)
With this run of chairs, I’m implementing a change to the stretchers that has been in the works for several years. I experimented with it when “Campaign Furniture” first came out, but never put it into production.
The goal is to shore up a weakness in these chairs – the stretchers can split when subject to too many beef brisket sandwiches. Before the book came out, I increased the diameter of the stretchers compared to historical examples and relied on riven or dead-straight material. That helped.
To strengthen them more, I contemplated switching to hickory for this component, which is likely the strongest chairmaking wood. But its color would clash with the mahogany components.
So instead I’ve beefed up the stretchers to 1-7/16” in diameter and have left the center sections octagonal instead of turned round. This does several things:
The stretchers don’t roll around on the floor when assembling and disassembling the Roorkhee.
They are indeed stronger – there’s more material.
You cannot feel the facets when they are wrapped in the 14 oz. latigo leather.
I now make the stretchers before making the legs. The turnings on the stretchers are easy, and that gets me warmed up for the legs, which have sections that transition from round to square. One false move on the leg turnings and you have made pricey firewood.
I’ve just completed an American Welsh Stick Chair in ash that is available for sale for $900 plus shipping (free delivery within 100 miles of Cincinnati). Sorry the chair has sold.
The chair is a variation on my typical chair. This one has an entirely new rake and splay to the legs – pushing up against the limits of the form. To compensate, the seat is thicker than usual (it started at 2-1/4” thick to take full advantage of the tapered tenons, which are 2-1/4” long). All of the joinery in this chair has been compressed for an incredibly tight fit (read more about that here). All the joints are put together with hide glue, which means this chair can be easily repaired long into the future should anything go wrong.
Also, I omitted two of the short sticks to add some negative space adjacent to the back sticks.
The seat is 17” from the floor (that’s 1” lower than modern chairs and far more comfortable in my opinion). The crest is 22” up from the seat deck. And the seat has been tilted back so this chair is ideal for relaxing, as opposed to keyboarding and dining (though you can use it for all those things). The chair is built for a maximum weight of 225 lbs.
The wood is special. It’s local ash that is heavily streaked with minerals. Brendan said it looks like desert camouflage. (So, be careful if you take this chair to the desert – you might lose track of it.)
The finish is a shop-made basecoat of linseed oil and natural-resin varnish. Then it is topped with organic beeswax.
We ship these chairs via LTL anywhere in the country. Usually the shipping charge is $200 or less, depending on where you live.
If you would like to buy this chair, send me a message through my website. I’m happy to answer any questions, but the first person to say “I’ll take it,” gets it.
