Chairmaking at Country Workshops - A Course Review

by Jim Crammond

I recently had the good fortune of spending a week immersed in ladder-back chair making under the tutelage of Drew Langsner at his Country Workshops in the Smokey Mountains.

A tool list was provided with the course synopsis that I received after I registered.  The list had some required tools that are very common, things like pencils, rulers, a combination square, safety glasses, files, etc.  There was an optional list too; this included spokeshaves, drawknives, block plane, backsaw, froe, chisels, etc.  With that being said, Drew recommended that you not purchase any tools before attending.  The shop was very well equipped and he thought you should try the different makes and styles of tools that they had on hand so you could make an intelligent decision of what to buy.  The shop layout and supply of tools was very conducive to the learning experience and a student could easily arrive with no tools and not be at any disadvantage.

The experience was great.  There were four students in the class and we started off at 9 A.M. with a couple of red oak logs.  The first step was splitting and riving the rungs for the chairs, 15 total (to ensure we could get 12 good ones) for each of us.  This consisted of riving inch and a half square (or a reasonable facsimile) pieces 17 to 20 inches long.  Using a drawknife and shaving horse, these were turned into straighter, more square pieces, 1" square, then into one-inch octagons.  Being rookies at this drawknifing business, it was easier said than done.

The next step was more of the same making the front posts.  These were about 20" long, and started about 2" square.  They were reduced to about 1-1/2" octagons with a taper at the bottom.  Next we made the back posts, which were similar to the front posts although longer with an additional flat detail on the top half of the post.  Then mortises were chopped for the back slats and the back legs were bent with the use of a steam box.  The legs were left in the box about 45 minutes, bent, then placed in a form and left to dry completely.  Drew said he left them in the form until they fell out, because he did not want to have any spring back after bending to keep all of the bends uniform.

At this point, all of the parts we made were put away to dry and we were issued parts of appropriate dryness made by previous classes.  Basically, the legs were air dried about a year and the rungs were air dried the same amount of time then kiln dried during the first several days of the class with the intent being the rungs would expand after assembly and the legs would shrink to produce tighter joints.

Next, we began assembly of the chair by the cutting the parts to length and rounding all the parts to their final dimension.  Again, the spokeshave and drawknife were the tools of choice although there were several times when a block plane was needed to cope with unruly grain.  Tenons were formed on the rungs using a spokeshave, coarse file and sandpaper.  Although eschewing the use of a hollow auger may sound like sacrilege to this group, the method we used actually progressed quickly and was quite accurate.  Drew gave us a little sidebar about the use of mechanical means for forming the tenons and showed us about ten different tools that he had tried but hadn't found any of them to his liking. Of the ones he tried, he thought the Woods was among the best.  Mortises were made in the legs to assemble the front of the chair and the back of the chair.  These were all 90 degree holes made using a c*rdl*ss dr*ll and Stanley power bore bits.  He had switched to this method a few years previous to make the process easier for the different skill levels that were in the class.  The use of a brace and bit would require a little more skill and an auger bit with a very short lead screw because of the dimension of the legs.  Next, the front legs were assembled to the back legs.

The final woodworking step of the assembly was to rive, dimension and shape the back slats.  These were heated using boiling water then bent and installed in the chair.  The final step was weaving the seat using Shaker 1" tape.

Conclusions:

Hand tool woodworking classes are a great way to spend a week.  There's nothing like being immersed in a project with other people who have similar interests.  One of the things that I liked about this course was the emphasis on hand tool use.  We used hand tools for probably 95% of the activities (including the use of a two man crosscut saw to saw a log), using tailed apprentices just twice to insure we would finish our chairs by the end of the week.

Making a living using hand tools would be a grueling, physical lifestyle, not nearly as romantic as I'd like to think.  Because there were some new skills to learn and lots of questions to be answered on the first chair, the next chair could most likely be produced in a little over half the time but the process involves a lot of physical labor.  Since I'm used to a fairly sedentary lifestyle, 8 to 10 hours of physical work per day was a challenge.

Drew Langsner was a great teacher and I would highly recommend his classes.  He does a very good job getting his ideas across and the class is structured so you start with basic tasks and build on them to accomplish the more difficult procedures.  I felt that the repetition of each of the skills allowed me to learn them thoroughly and I feel confident that I understand the process and would have no problem building a chair on my own.  The facilities were great; the shop, the meals and the lodging were all conducive to learning.  Drew has written several books and one, The Chairmaker's Workshop, provides a very good synopsis of the class.  This book will make a great reference if I do have any questions while making the chairs to complete the set of 5 I would like to make.