Japanese Chestnut on the Lathe

Our Japanese Chestnut (Castanea crenata) is fairly resistant to the Chestnut blight fungus that devastated billions of trees in the United States, and where intensive efforts to find a prevention for the disease have to this day not been successful.  In Japan, our Chestnut is still quite abundant, the wood being a valuable timber, and the nuts an important food product.   It appears that although the Asian trees have the level of resistance, it is thought that either the Japanese or Chinese variety (different species) were in fact the culprits in introducing the parasite into the west, possibly either in some lumber or living trees that were imported.  A sad day that was, beginning the demise of an important timber from trees that had also been a source of food to natives and the early settlers.

Speaking of the wood's character, it is quite 'calm', a fairly light in weight hardwood that is yielding and relatively easy to work with.   With time, objects made from the wood take on a subdued but very pleasant honey color, giving a subtle quiet effect.  One of my favorite woods, and fortunate to have a local source for it.  I have made a wide range of different types of furniture with Chestnut, both of western and Japanese style inspiration.  I currently am building a rocking chair with the wood.  There can be some range in the quality of the material, the older trees with a tighter grain are the ones that yield the best lumber, with greater stability resulting as well. 

It occurs that many woodworkers have not had the opportunity to work with the wood, perhaps haven't much seen how it turns out when worked and polished up with a finish on it.  Both a clear oil and an urushi finish will give very pleasing results.

A tray or "obon" like this is very commonly used to serve tea, I suppose nearly every household will have one.  A fine wood for the lathe as well.  This chunk has an interesting swath of reddish color through it, something that I don't recall seeing much before.

I put this small item with it's stand of tig welded stainless out as part of an exhibition that I had of pieces for sale, something inexpensive to supplement the larger furniture work.  I was interested in seeing what reaction it might bring, to my mind a very lovely piece of wood in a useful form that most people can relate to, and last but not least, at a giveaway price.  "Buy it for almost nothing and I will give you the stand too".  I like to at least show one thing at a price that a shrewd person ought to pick up on right away, my contribution to the masses, so to speak.  I don't recall there being any reaction really, folks barely looked at it. It is hard to figure, sometimes, and a bit disappointing.  Still, Illusions can inspire...

Gone, but Not Forgotten

The folks that ordered this rocking chair finally came by the shop to pick it up.  It's been a few weeks since I completed it, and could have delivered it to them the next day, but picking it up was their preference, and the fellow is a shokunin himself and has a truck.  He wrapped it with cardboard, even carried it out of the shop, leaving me feeling odd and thinking it was a first for that.  I would have used moving blankets.  Only the next town south where his residence is, but it saved me some effort.  I never did see the location where the chair would be used, something that always interests me.  Japanese houses of a certain period do tend to be alike, so I can easily imagine.

The Cherry wood turned out quite attractive with the Egoma or sometimes called Perilla oil that I now mainly use for my finishing.  It does bring out a lot of color, and is quite a strong finish for a natural oil, something that is desirable in our relatively high humidity environment during certain times of the year.   The back support laths are made from a wood called Sen, and having the highly figured fiddle pattern is not uncommon with the species.  It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a type of Japanese Ash, having a similar color and grain, but being an unrelated species.   The design I am pretty pleased with, though I am continuing my attempts to lighten up the chair with the current edition that is presently in the works, this time made from Chestnut, a wood that I have been using a lot of recently.  There was an earlier comment that the Windsor type side stretcher is not needed for strength,  and perhaps within that thought is also the possibility that it is incongruous with the rest of the design?  At this point I don't mind it, more think that it adds a small element of interest.  I enjoy seeing something on a chair that touches with earlier eras, when the overall concept may be of a contemporary nature.  The illustrious history of chair design evolution speaks a lot to me.

The rocking chair origin can only be traced back to North America during the early 18th century, though rocking cradles appeared much earlier, as is evident in paintings.  This type chair soon appeared in Great Britain shortly there after.  Perhaps one of the very few examples of early American made chair design influencing Great Britain, if that really was the case.  Few if any of the original makers saw the chair as something requiring further thought as to design, based on the fact that the chair had blades on the bottom and was meant to move.  Regular chairs were simply made with the usual straight legs shortened, to which the curved blades were attached, something that is still quite commonly done today.  I have done a number of them that way as well myself, but something always bothered me about what often appears as a rather stiff form stuck onto curves.  It is as if the chair has a case of rigor mortis!   To my mind, designing a complete chair where the form can carry through from and to the curvilinear parts on the bottom, and it also has some visual cohesiveness with the movement aspect, it makes more sense.  My rocking chairs over the more recent years, without the blades, there would be no safe way to sit in them without the risk of crashing over backwards or forwards.  In the lesser completed form, certainly not a gentleman's chair, or something acceptable to a lady that might easily become flustered!   I think of chairs as offering the place for the input of a great amount of subtlety, depending on the intended manner of use and location, and from that gives the possibilities of great practical seating.  It is something to hold the interest of the craftsman woodworker throughout a lifetime of work.

Some folks have asked me to post photos of the completed chair, and I welcome any comments.  Thanks for viewing my blog.

Some Old Work Revisited

A customer of mine asked me to refinish a table that I had made for him a number of years ago, his granddaughter had worked it over pretty good.  It was a bit of an unusual project at the time to build it, and I had somewhat of a hard time approaching it with the usual degree of concentration.  He was using a Mahogany table that the carpenter who built his house made, and though the material was quite nice wood, it was too narrow and the base was rather heavy and ill proportioned to the top.  He asked me to do something with it, no specifics required, whatever I wanted.

I didn't have any Mahogany and it is hard to obtain.  I did have some Maple in the length required however, and it was handy and well seasoned,  so I just widened the top with it and changed the overall shape to something that I thought was pleasing, and also used some of the lighter wood for the base, mixed with Black Acacia and Walnut for the woven pattern.  I'm not so into racing stripes, and a lot of thought really didn't go into the project, I simply produced it rather quickly as a priority, and it pretty much came from nowhere but the time.  No study, pulling out old patterns, or sketching.  My customer is a casual guy, owns a great French restaurant, from which he has mostly retired now.  His lifestyle is relaxed and at his own pace.  He likes the more unique aspects of the table, I guess could be said, and it gets treated pretty rough, used for both dining and as a work surface.  The chairs were a later addition that he asked me to do.

It's enjoyable for me to see the table now and then, he lives close by my shop.  It does make me wonder what I had in mind when I produced it?  I do recall thinking in an intuitive way about what he would like, and also what I could do expediently.  I might want to try and develop the idea of the wood weaving during another time.  I was a little concerned regarding the durability of the strips, they are quite thin, but so far everything has held up without any problem at all.

Seat Shaping Thoughts

I've added a final short summation to the earlier videos on shaping a wooden seat.  I hope that in the series, there may be some useful information for people wishing to do similar work.  I am interested in learning if anyone finds what I have shown here to be helpful within their own approach to chair making, or what other methods that they may have found useful to produce seats.  A bit of a choppy edited vid, sorry!   Thanks for viewing.

Final Seat Shaping

The last in my three part video series on how I shape wooden seats. Thanks for watching, and I hope that there may be some useful practical aspect for someone, contained in the methods shown.

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.