The dustbin of history

I really like those chairs.

Keith Newton

I'll bet if you could have gotten that much for them back then, you would still be knocking them out. How did you handle the curved parts, steam?

Re: The dustbin of history

Mark Nowicki

Why are you flattered?

About a third of your original price.

Very nice work!

Steaming cherry

Ellis Walentine

Thanks Keith. No, I tried my very best to steam those crest rails but I ended up laminating them. The original plan was to steam them and have them be in one plane instead of twisted. I actually cut down a cherry tree and rove blanks from it so I could have perfect straight grain, absolutely green wood for steaming. I built a huge bending form with giant eye bolts and a steel strap with angle iron end blocks, to be used with two one-ton comealongs to pull the steamed blanks into shape, but the cherry just wouldn't make the bend. In retrospect, I wonder if it would have worked if I had steamed them longer. Laminations around curves insist on twisting, so that was my concession to the Wegnerian form I wanted. The arms aren't quite as comfortable as they would have been if they were steamed, but the aesthetic works.

Ellis

Re: The dustbin of history

Ellis Walentine

I don't want to think about what I charged for pieces in those days. :-(

Ellis

Lovely work

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

I'm sure you'd have liked to get that kind of money when you sold them - but how nice that your name carries weight in the market, as it does here!

Re: The dustbin of history

John Jardin

Outstanding craftsmanship...Thank You

Re: The dustbin of history

mark hennebury

Nice work Ellis, and nice to see that they are as solid as the day that they were made and are well valued.

Re: The dustbin of history

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Ellis, the chairs are spectacular, and this demonstrates that good design is timeless.

Of course, we know that the price is just for the name

I am curious ... looking back on something a few decades you designed (this could apply to all here), do you feel a nagging need to change anything?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hindsight in design

Ellis Walentine

Absolutely, Derek. It would be very unusual not to view a finished piece and not see how it could have been better. As I mentioned to Keith Newton in an email earlier today, in the case of those chairs, I had really wanted to steam bend them, for the aesthetic of a flat rail around vs the twist that is inherent in bending laminations around a three-axis curve. I had even cut down a black cherry tree for this commission, riven out the blanks to get perfectly straight grain, built a very serious bending fixture and tried my best, but I couldn't steam bend them successfully. I gave up and built a laminating form and kept going.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever been entirely content with a design, even before I started building the piece. Part of that has to do with my view of the nature of design, that each design problem encompasses several dimensions of compromise -- aesthetics, function, materials, cost, engineering, and construction. Each design is only as good as the sum of the compromises you've made. Unless you have the time and budget for perfection, and an objective way to measure it, you settle for the best solution you can come up with at the moment.

Also, no matter how good you are at drawing and rendering and preparing samples, the finished product always reveals something you hadn't anticipated. The key is to walk away from it and learn from the experience.

Ellis

Re: The dustbin of history

AZ in Colorado Springs

Really nice pieces. Is there a Green and Green influence in the table? Looks like I can see echoes of cloud lifts. Looks great.

Re: Hindsight in design

Bruce, a MN Galoot

A. Really nice chair, Ellis.

B. I learned the hard ways a few years later than you. I made a continuous arm Windsor with a laminated arm. That sucker never did close up properly and I learned why the original (that I shamelessly copied) was built with one fewer curve than I tried to make it do. I will say the original was less comfy to rest my arms on than mine, though. I never did make another like it.

Re: The dustbin of history

Ellis Walentine

Yes, Greene and Greene were my biggest influences in this house. The cloud lifts were a nod to G&G for sure.

Ellis

Re: The dustbin of history

Barry Irby

Love the pieces, but I have a complaint. I have a "commission" (In quotations because there is no payment involved) from my younger son to build an entertainment center. How am I to steal your design with only that little detail to go by?

The chairs are wonderful. (How do you make a chair? Start by cutting down a tree.....sounds like something I would have done)

Making a chair

Ellis Walentine

Glad you find the design worth emulating. You should be able to deduce the dimensions from the photos, based on typical chair height, and you can see enough of the joinery and shapes of the parts to make some drawings. How to actually build it would have to be the subject of more discussions. If you want, I suppose I could write an article about it, but not in the immediate future.

Ellis

Re: Steaming cherry

Keith Newton

Yes Ellis, back then, I tried and failed at steaming some cherry for a chair of my own design too. I'm pretty sure I would be able to do it now though. Back then I didn't have a large enough burner to supply the BTUs, which renders the hour per inch meaningless. I'm sure I didn't get the temperature up high enough in the middle. Now though, I would have one of those thermometers inserted in a hole drilled in to the middle of the wood, with a cable fed to a display outside the chamber.

If I was attempting this in Winter, I would have a length of foil laid out that I would roll it up in as quickly as possible to stop the evaporation, which speeds the cooling on the outside. And of course have backing straps with end blocks to provide end to end compression. Another thing that would help, is to make the blank at least a couple of feet longer than the overall needed length, which would provide a longer lever to pull into shape, and maybe not steam all the way to the ends. When trying to bend a steamed piece too close to the ends, there is much more end to end compression on the inside of the curve, which causes a reverse curve at the ends due to the strap needing to be flexible and not able to counter the higher force from the opposite side.

I have bent 8/4" cherry to a 5" radius before, so know that it can be done. Back then when we were still a little damp behind the ears, I was using a piece of PVC for the chamber. I think I recall one article in FWW which showed using aluminum downspout, which isn't a great idea due to aluminum being a great conductor, much of the heat you need in the wood will be lost to the outside. Now I would build a closed cell foam rectangular chamber with holes in the ends that would allow me to have part of the blank sticking out of both ends. A bit of cotton fabric stuffed around the blank will stop leakage, and or just stuff a rag in the opening when one blank is pulled out to prevent loosing the steam on other parts.

If anyone following this thread gets inspired to follow Ellis's lead and try their hand at steaming, I strongly encourage you to go to Lee Valley and get their free booklet download. Read it carefully and don't think you can skip any part and get away with it. There are SO MANY WAYS to screwup something that seems like it should be easy and intuitive, but until you have stumbled through finding all those ways, you will finally realize that your amazing brain can't intuit everything. DAHIKT ;-)

Wowzer, Wow, and WOW!!!!!

questions

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

How did the selling organization know this furniture was made by you?

Why did you stop making furniture of this kind?

Was all your product of similar design?

What was the finish?

Some answers

Ellis Walentine

How did the selling organization know this furniture was made by you?

Not sure, Bill. I did have a reputation in our region back in the late 70s and through the 80s, and this furniture was part of an entire interior designed by me. The owner and his heirs knew who made the stuff and probably conveyed that to the gallery. Some of my work was also featured in a book called Handmade Shelves and Cabinets, published by Rodale Press in '84, eight years before I went to work for them at American Woodworker.

Why did you stop making furniture of this kind?

I never stopped designing and building things, but I decided that the custom business was too much work for not enough reward, and all that meticulous work was getting shipped off to some patron's home or office and I would never see it again. And, this kind of furniture was only part of what we did. By far the lion's share of our output was architectural in nature -- built-ins, staircases, libraries, kitchens, bathrooms, entryways, sunrooms, on and on -- not just freestanding furniture. I had invested so much of myself into my work that I hated consigning it to some penthouse in New York or mansion in Philly or the Eastern Shore, so I decided to diversify and get into other ways to make a living. It was selfishness, really.

Was all your product of similar design?

I didn't have any "products" per se, at least not in the sense of production items (except for a line of lamps and light fixtures I produced for a while). Everything was commissioned and designed in whatever style best solved the client's needs. My own personal stylistic preferences were heavily influenced in those days by the Arts & Crafts guys, particularly G&G, and my own design commissions reflected those tastes and motifs. But, when I worked for architects and interior designers, we built what they designed. That part of my business was more of a custom-build service than a product. What I brought to the party for them was knowledge of how to build stuff elegantly and well, and how to suggest and source unusual and exotic woods, hardware and finishes. They trusted me and paid well. I had a lot of free rein to style things the way I saw fit as long as it was within the basic design structure they specified.

What was the finish?

Like everything else in design world, the answer depended on the job at hand. The chairs and tables I posted here I'm sure were finished with multiple coats of Waterlox Transparent (the precursor of today's Waterlox finishes), because that was my go-to finish for most furniture and treen in those days. For some jobs, sprayed lacquer or conversion varnish was appropriate. Floors and countertops often were urethaned for wear resistance.

Sorry for the nosebleed here. This whole topic of woodworking design and running a custom shop is still a fond recollection for me, and sometimes I get pretty nostalgic. Plus, the stories could fill volumes...

Re: Some answers

Steve jenkins

Very nice pieces Ellis. I enjoy your reminiscing and ruminating

go on.....

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I enjoyed the history and insight. Thanks for taking the time.

I thought you might have had a novel and creative way of labeling your work, hence the question.

Re: go on.....

Ellis Walentine

Well, I did have the little vanity of a white ivory rosebud inlaid into pieces I designed myself, so there was some cachet there; but no labels.

Ellis

Re: Making a chair

Barry Irby

My bad, I did not make myself clear. My son wants a sort of MCM entertainment center. He has sent me at least twenty pictures. So far the only thing fixed is he wants it seven feet long. And maybe fumed oak.

Sorry, Barry

Ellis Walentine

I was thinking chairs since most of the conversation was about them. That entertainment center was really a magnum opus. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It was solid bubinga, madrone burl, ebony and Belgian black granite, about 15 feet long, with bays for a TV (remember small televisions?), stereo gear, media storage, a pop-up bar sink, and a few other storage cabinets, with a tambour door on one end cabinet and a curved laminated one on the other. It was a true act of woodworking masochism.

Why don't you post a new thread about what you know about your son's entertainment cabinet -- functions, known dimensions, outward appearance (materials/finishes), and any constraints (cost, style, etc.); and maybe some of our esteemed WoodCentral folks can pitch in and give you some ideas?

Ellis