Well I'm back from KY and I've got to say I'm just blown away by the past 2 weeks. I'll start by saying that Kelly Mehler's School in Berea, KY is top notch all the way! He treats his students better than any other school I've been to (Woodguy1975's is a close 2nd though :wink_smil) What an experience. Here's a pic of the school/workshop the 1st morning of class
The class I took was a 2 week course called Greenwood Chairmaking taught by Brian Boggs. In this class the goal was for each student to build 1 of Brian's side chairs. http://www.brianboggschairs.com/side3.htm
I'll start by explaining that over 2 weeks not only did we easily build this chair but we also had numerous discussions on hand tools, their design and sharpening, running a woodworking business, cutting and drying lumber, workshop efficiency, and chair design principles and techniques. Brian's goal for the class was to equip each student with a chairmaking manual they could use to develop their own designs in the future. What I got was much more than just that, I learned a whole new perspective on woodworking. Needless to say, I would highly recommend Brian's classes to anyone interested.
So on to the class:
The 1st day we selected our lumber from the rough material Brian brought for class (red maple for the legs with some hickory thrown in for the rungs). The 1st task was to make bending forms for the rear legs.
The bending form is necessary because in this chair the rear legs are steam bent to form. This process was one I had always been interested in but also always quite afraid of (black magic?). However, the process is pretty straightfoward and actually quite fun. What was most surprising was how rudimentary the steamer design was. I found myself saying multiple times: "Heck, I could easily do this at home." Here's the pic of our class steamer:
After the legs sat in the steamer for 2 hours we took them out and put them into compression with this strap available from Veritas and then "pre-bent" them in this form for a few minutes.
In the next pic you can see the wrinkling of the wood at the bend. This actually goes away as the wood sets to the curve when we leave it in our bending jigs made above
The next day we cut out and steam bent the backslats:
We then made octagons of the front legs to get them ready for handshaping with a drawknife and spokeshaves.
After that Brian spent some time demonstrating the use of the drawknife and spokeshaves to shape both the front and rear legs:
While the rear legs were still square we hand chopped the mortises for the backsplats and then used this handy jig to measure and make our backsplats
and here's what the rear ladder section looks like after shaping and fitting the backslats:
We all then spent some more time on the shavehorses shaping our rear legs round and refining our front legs and backsplats:
and here's all the main components shaped and ready for the next stage
In Part 2 I'll detail actually putting the chair together and weaving the seat. Hope ya'll enjoyed Part 1.
The class I took was a 2 week course called Greenwood Chairmaking taught by Brian Boggs. In this class the goal was for each student to build 1 of Brian's side chairs. http://www.brianboggschairs.com/side3.htm
I'll start by explaining that over 2 weeks not only did we easily build this chair but we also had numerous discussions on hand tools, their design and sharpening, running a woodworking business, cutting and drying lumber, workshop efficiency, and chair design principles and techniques. Brian's goal for the class was to equip each student with a chairmaking manual they could use to develop their own designs in the future. What I got was much more than just that, I learned a whole new perspective on woodworking. Needless to say, I would highly recommend Brian's classes to anyone interested.
So on to the class:
The 1st day we selected our lumber from the rough material Brian brought for class (red maple for the legs with some hickory thrown in for the rungs). The 1st task was to make bending forms for the rear legs.
The bending form is necessary because in this chair the rear legs are steam bent to form. This process was one I had always been interested in but also always quite afraid of (black magic?). However, the process is pretty straightfoward and actually quite fun. What was most surprising was how rudimentary the steamer design was. I found myself saying multiple times: "Heck, I could easily do this at home." Here's the pic of our class steamer:
After the legs sat in the steamer for 2 hours we took them out and put them into compression with this strap available from Veritas and then "pre-bent" them in this form for a few minutes.
In the next pic you can see the wrinkling of the wood at the bend. This actually goes away as the wood sets to the curve when we leave it in our bending jigs made above
The next day we cut out and steam bent the backslats:
We then made octagons of the front legs to get them ready for handshaping with a drawknife and spokeshaves.
After that Brian spent some time demonstrating the use of the drawknife and spokeshaves to shape both the front and rear legs:
While the rear legs were still square we hand chopped the mortises for the backsplats and then used this handy jig to measure and make our backsplats
and here's what the rear ladder section looks like after shaping and fitting the backslats:
We all then spent some more time on the shavehorses shaping our rear legs round and refining our front legs and backsplats:
and here's all the main components shaped and ready for the next stage
In Part 2 I'll detail actually putting the chair together and weaving the seat. Hope ya'll enjoyed Part 1.
