Travishing a Chair Seat

Step 2 in the process of shaping a wooden chair seat, following adzing. Using "travishing" irons here, a tool that evolved with the trade of Windsor chair making in Great Britain.  Produced by blacksmiths, the degree of curve in the irons varied, and the handles were likely accordingly made by the users.  The one I most use in the video has a handle that I shaped to fit an old iron that I found.  The other is complete as I discovered it, also at a second hand tool dealers in Buckinghamshire.  Quite efficient for cleaning up the adze effects, and for more refined shaping of the contours, used both across and parallel with the grain.  Great tools, albeit requiring a degree of physical effort to accomplish the task.  I have no thought as to what might work with better efficiency, without going to some electric grinding or sanding devices.  I do enjoy keeping certain traditions alive, and have used these tools for many hundreds of seats.

Still one step to go for the final shaping, using Japanese tools.

Adzing Again

The origins of my own chair making are much derived from the couple of years that I spent with two of the last companies in Great Britain still doing traditional work.   Both learning the methods and being immersed in the atmosphere of the old chair making town, it afforded me the great opportunity to drink deeply from the brilliant history of woodworking within that country.  The "bottomers" adze for roughing out seats is still the method that I use today.  Merely picking up my adze gives me a tingle of pleasure, it feels good in my hands, and it conveys a very practical use, albeit somewhat remote from the more mechanical devices in broader application today, designed for removing wood for a similar purpose, with the loud noise and dust that they also create, and possibly being powered by the nuclear juice.  This particular seat will be for a new rocking chair design, currently in the works for a customer.

With English all wooden chairs, particularly Windsors, having been made predominantly from hardwoods, the seats more often than not, Elm, having an initial tool for seat shaping, where a lot of physical power could be applied through, as well still enabling a degree of control, the adze with the longer handle and curved wide face became the tool of choice.  During the era of segregated tasks being done by specialists, working with the adze became a separate profession in itself within the chair shops.  I'm not sure that it was such an enviable one however, as the work with the tool can be hard on your back if done for extended hours, and there also is the degree of danger working with the sharp instrument.  Carelessness can creep in with fatigue.  I can only marvel at the fellow in the old photo, and the effort it took to adze out the many seats behind him.  Perhaps early 20th century?  Note his protective leather leggings.  It's a sweet looking adze shape that he is using there as well.  Reading about the history of chair making in Great Britain, injuries weren't so uncommon within the bottomer's trade.  "No toes Neville", is one bloke still remembered in the literature.  In the very least, I still need to get one of those caps.

The seat in the video is from a local species of Cherry found in my area.  Somewhat more difficult to adze compared to the more resilient Elm, going against the grain can blow out divots deeper than you want to go, or lift up sections beyond the edges of the desired outer profile within the seat blank.  A sharp adze and caution as you go with the right touch, will give the best results.  It took me a fair amount of practice initially to acquire the skill, my body learning to develop the control to lift up a shaving and follow it through to complete a pass.  With the random striking here and there without enabling the cleaner more even furrows, common amongst folks learning to do the work,  the result is far less productive in terms of  more even contours, and what does result in leading up to the next steps in shaping, also comes at a slower pace.  Experience makes for the better ability.  The adze is indeed a fine tool, one where once you have learned it's use and potential, keeping it in practice is something that seems to come along with it.  I wonder how many of us are still out there using it today?

I follow the adze work with both English and Japanese hand tools for completing the seat, which I hope to also show in a video.

Old Friends and Windsor Chairs Again!

I recently made contact with some old friends, a couple that I had met on the airplane when moving to England to do chair making within the wonderful traditions that exist there for the craft.  Mr and Mrs Sano were also moving to England to live for awhile,  Mr Sano is a professional photographer, and more often than not can be seen with his camera in his hand. It had been thirty-five years since I last had seen or spoken to these very kindly and otherwise enjoyable people.   They had asked me to make two dining chairs for them after we did get together again, and they visited my shop one day last year.

The Sano's current dining arrangement is a mix of an antique English table with chairs of different designs, all purchased after they had mover back to Japan and found in a shop here.  The chairs I would be building for them would be replacing two of the existing ones, that were to continue finding use in another part of the residence.

The specifics of the design were to come up with something similar to some early work that the couple saw and liked in my portfolio, and that the choice of wood be American Black Walnut.  They wanted a relatively simple chair without arms.  I took the liberty of adding some Japanese Cherry for the back laths.  I have always liked the combination of Walnut and Cherry, thinking the grain and colors of the two woods play off of each other well.  Also, to my eye, the Cherry tends to lighten up the visual heaviness of the dark Walnut. The two woods will age gracefully together.  The photos below are of one of the Sano's new chairs, a commission I immensely enjoyed thinking about and making, for some folks that I consider good friends.

The Sanos picked up the chairs on a beautiful weather day.  We went up to an airy soba noodle restaurant to have lunch, at the base of some mountains nearby. An old temple is also there to explore, with a waterfall directly behind it that sends out a chilly mist.  The mountain snow is melting now and the streams are running full.

Working away from the shop

As mentioned in some other posts, I have a side work activity doing tree removals.  I live in an area where a large portion of land is forested, mostly Pine woods.   Most of the removals are around homes in the wooded areas, but sometimes also at a city location, very diverse places really, one of the reasons that I enjoy it.  Seeing some areas that I normally wouldn't get the opportunity to visit and often speaking with the residents there, working with some pleasant and highly skilled people, the challenges of the heavy work, all things that add up to a nice sometimes change from being by myself in my workshop.  Still working with wood, with a totally different goal, makes for a good contrast from the rather finely detailed aspects of furniture making, and at the end of a work day, the amount of accomplishment is often determined by a pile of logs stacked up, requiring a diversity of physical actions to achieve it, both on the ground and above.  A lot of consideration is sometimes involved in the process as well, different situations come up and there are risks that require being confronted.  It can make for some very interesting and exciting work.

Most of the tree work is aided by a crane, a great device that often allows a safer and more practical approach to removing trees. The vid here, I made with my helmet camera, and it exemplifies a typical day, part of a job cutting about eighty trees on a property to be sold, and where a recent snow had caused some damage to an adjoining house when a few trees toppled.   It gets especially interesting when the wind picks up about 25 minutes into the vid.  The wind is a truly powerful force, and something to be very well considered and respected when working with trees. 

A pretty girl and her jewelry box

I was fortunate to have an interesting commission come my way not too long ago, and from the states.  A friend asked me to make a jewelry box for his young daughter, to be shown to her upon it's arrival, but actually will be given to her to use when she is older....perhaps turning 18?  I considered it a thoughtful and loving gift.  The order also came at a time when I really needed the work, due to the earthquake and consequences that had resulted shortly before.  Thanks, Paul!

I had been keeping a small supply of what is called Enju wood here, in my possession for at least fifteen years, but had never used any of it.  It is a legume, not so unlike Black Acacia and in the same family I believe, but is a bit softer and a warm brown color.  No previous experience working with the species, but I knew it by reputation as a material sometimes used by an old occupation of woodworkers in Japan, called "sashimono".  These are people that specialized in making smaller items in wood, from scroll cases to certain types of furniture, most frequently in a traditional style, but in many instances also having unique detail embellishments, often very intricately made articles that required a major investment in time to produce.  The level of skill and fine degree of execution is inspiring if one cares to look into it.  There are fine examples to be seen, though sadly, the demand for such goods is in limited supply today, and the number of people still involved in the trade, now few. I suspected that Enju is fairly easy to work and can take on fine crisp details, which turned out to be the case. I can only imagine that the color of the wood will become deep and rich with time and use.

I enjoyed this project immensely, from the initial conceptualizing to the finish execution.  The design is pretty simple, but there is some subtlety, as in the slightly curving sides from top to bottom.  It wasn't without a degree of difficulty to make, working within the limited allowable size, and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.  My customer seems happy too, sent a photo of Whylie that I love, taken on her birthday!  It was a lucky coincidence that the jewelry box arrived shortly before.  The box is really not very large, but Whylie being next to it makes it appear so.  I am confident that in a few years, the proportions will be better matched!  I do hope that she will get many years of enjoyable use from what I made for her.  In thirty or forty years, I would very much like to see how it has aged....Whylie as well, alas.

Chestnut

Chestnut is one of my favorite locally available species of wood to work with.  It is not so hard as many other typical furniture making woods, a nice change from using Walnut and Cherry, for example.  The species has a certain accommodating resiliency, is quite stable, and over time, ages to a very attractive warm homey color.  With use and care, it will take on a nice patina as well, one beyond what the oil finishing process can initially impart, Either with an oil or urushi finish, the results can be very attractive.  The grain pattern is bold apparent, but not overwhelming, compared to what is often found in Keyaki (Zelkova).  There is a feeling of humbleness and practicality with the material, and that coincides with the diverse locations where it can be seen growing in and around the area where I reside.  Large trees sometimes become available to be sawn into slabs to dry for later use, but as is often the case with other woods as well, finding logs without defects can prove difficult.  Age imparts the welcomed size, but it also gives time for rot or other undesirable effects to develop, and some types of boring insects frequently will target the wood.  Fortunately, Japan has not been affected by the great Chestnut blight disease, that greatly eliminated the species in other parts of the world

Since the great earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan, I have continued to work in my shop.  Though commissions came to a near standstill and it was a major disruption, I did have some requested pieces to complete over the last year, the photos shown here being representative of some of it, and with the thankfulness as well, to have such a fine Chestnut wood to provide for the making, for myself and the people that asked me to make furniture for them.

The upper photo of four chairs is for a location that I never saw.  A lady looked through my portfolio and liked some older Windsor styles that I had done many years earlier, and notified that, "Simpler is better", was her philosophy, something that I don't so much subscribe to, generally liking a certain degree of subtle ornamentation on furniture.  I was in agreement in this instance, however, as doing the work for a 'mystery spot' necessitated restraint.  The client also specified wanting a comfortable wooden seat, as opposed to using upholstery.  Those were pretty much the extent of her specifics, once again with the nod to something not dissimilar to the earlier work photos that I had shown her.  My 'hunch' of what she would like, some inspiration from the wood, and what I wanted to make, is what remained to help with the direction of things.  After sending her the completed chairs, she responded with a most pleasing note, and a box of delicious mikan, a type of Japanese fruit similar to tangerines, and available during the winter from some warmer areas in the south.  Eating mikan during the winter is a national pastime.  It is something that can help take your mind off the cold, and what a relentless cold winter it was!  Also, the fruit is a good source of vitamin C.  Stay healthy to do more woodwork, is perhaps what she was wanting to say, along with her thanks.

The cushion seat chair as part of a dining set commission for a newly built small home, is shown with flat runners on the bottoms of the legs, essential added parts when using this type of seating on the tatami mat.  Without the lower flat connecting pieces, the legs would be damaging to the mat, causing indentations and possible tearing.  With them, the weight is spread out with no edges that will grab, and the chairs slide easily over the surface.  For wooden or carpeted surfaces, I produce this design without the bottom runners.  For people that might find it helpful to have their chairs be able to be moved with more minimal resistance, the runners can be incorporated for any surface on which the seating is used, acting as glides. The arm on this chair is rather difficult to make.  There is a dip in the midway portion of the sloping arm surface, between where one's elbow and forearm make contact when sitting, yet the wood thickness remains consistent.   As opposed to the simpler alternative of merely being flat, the curve at that point makes for more comfortable resting of a person's arm, and also adds a certain visual welcoming softness, to my eye.  Done in this way complicates the joinery process, and the design requires a number of ordered steps from bandsawing to hand shaping, to give the results that I want.  A lot of care and control is required to give the smooth transition of lines and what will best provide comfort.  The method is my own concept, I have never seen similarly done.

I am certainly one of the more fortunate ones, to still have the ability to live and work as before the disaster struck Japan, where so many people suffered the tragic losses of family, home, and their place of occupation. For many individuals, returning to what had previously been their normal way of life is still far from being realized, or the hopes to do so will never be completely fulfilled.  What particularly strikes me in this post, is the strong contrast between the last two photos.  The upper one shows a hopefulness for the future, the ability to find usefulness and enjoyment within our surroundings and in the way we live, while the lower photo shows a kind of ultimate destruction, with everything gone and bewilderment towards what lies ahead.  Both can be the realities of life.

Old photos

Going through a box of old photos taken over a number of years, I picked out a few that brought back some particular memories.  Sometimes what was done came easy, other times more entailing some struggle.  Meeting and getting to know the people who ask me to make furniture for them is a big part of it. I think the photos give an idea of some of the diversity of individuals that I have done work for, and how their tastes and homes helped to direct me to go in a design direction for the particular commission, and resulted in a fairly wide array of styles.  California is a place with rather eclectic tastes, from very traditional to wanting something that has never been done before. No doubt a lot of work was approached that would never have been so, without the inspiration from the customers, and the challenge of finding my own interest to portray into a requested job is something that I much like doing.  I receive a lot of satisfaction from building furniture that 'fits' well into the location where it will be used.

I don't particularly subscribe to the "simple is best" philosophy, I like small details that hopefully catch someone's eye over time, maybe add some fun and personality to the work.  My own sense tells me about the ornaments, what my eye wants to see, and the scale.  I try to be careful that the smaller details don't cloud up the important overall form of the furniture, put trust into an order of things to convey a message.

Mostly quite old work here, done when my shop was located in the states.