Completed Chair Class
Mike Jurnigan
>This past winter and through the spring I held a Windsor Chair class at my shop. I had a gentleman that worked with me retire the first of the year, and he wanted to learn how to build a Windsor Chair. I agreed to assist him and another one of my former students to build the Lancaster County Fanback that was done a couple of seasons ago on the New Yankee Workshop, however we did more handwork than Norm did with his chairs. I did something with this class I had never done before and that is to do a chair class with a chair that I had never built prior to the class. Both of these students got to see first hand how a chair is built the first time and the processes used to work out the little “bugs” that pop up during the building of a first chair. The two gentleman, Bob Rudy and John Allman, and I got together this past week to celebrate, somewhat belatedly, the completion of our chairs.
I always build a chair during the class. Bob wanted to build a pair, which is what extended the time for the class, as I agreed to see him through two chairs. (We did the class on weekends) John built a single chair, which he informed us that he has a sale for as soon as it gets painted. This particular chair should be considered for an advanced chair class. John would fit in the advance chair builder category, however Bob had never built a chair and had not done any turning prior to this class and these were fairly complicated turnings for a beginner to accomplish. As you can see, he did extremely well for his first attempt at turning. Overall, I consider the class a huge success; a beginner who did two excellent advance chairs, one who already has a sale for his chair and a chair for the LOL that she can now call her own. Now to get busy and paint this chair and a Dunbar styled Nantucket Fanback for me and two Rodbacks to go with the table pictured below. Thanks for looking and reading.
Mike
Left to right: Bob Rudy, myself, John Allman
