Story Behind "Sightings" Pix (Long)
Greg Bétit, Vergennes, VT
>This Winter Kevin Adams (a fellow WC Hand Tool Forum enthusiast) and I were lamenting the fact that our wives were both questioning the need for us to attend more classes on chair making. Actually my wife called it “chair camp”.
On the theory that our wives’ objection was the expense of the chair making classes, we concluded that we should get together for a weekend and build chairs together. A date was picked, and we corresponded back and forth to determine the style and material we would build the chairs from. A Welsh stick chair with a short fan back and bent arms was what we settled upon. Kevin would bring the seat material and I would supply the green log for the legs, spindles and arms. We also decided that we should add two days to the weekend to make sure we had enough time to complete the project.
I have lots of black locust in my woods, and I have always wondered if it wouldn’t make good chair material. These trees run straight for 60 and more feet, with few branches until you reach the crown. Somewhere I read that black locust would steam bend as well as ash. Two weeks before the planned weekend I knocked one down, split it open, worked a piece into an arm and steam bent it. I wanted to be sure the black locust would work- otherwise I would have to get a hickory, red oak or ash log.
The weekend finally arrived (August 12 – 15). Friday we set right to work riving and working the black locust into arm bending blanks. We steamed them but they both failed when we bent them. It was obvious that the failures were due to pin knots and other blemishes in the wood. We popped open three more of the 4’ logs to see if there was some material that looked clearer, but it was more of the same. It seems that my sample of two weeks earlier was the only clear piece in the tree.
With the conclusion that we would need to get another tree to end up with successfully bent arms, we brainstormed the options. I was all for going to the mill for an ash or oak log, but Kevin was thinking that a kitchen counter stool was a good option. We’d lost enough time already, his kitchen had just been remodeled, and needed some stools. So we made stools.
The stools in the picture were saddled with gutter adze, inshave, travisher and compass plane from the beautiful butternut Kevin brought. The legs and stretchers were made on the shaving horse with draw knife and spoke shave using the unbendable locust. It didn’t shave particularly nicely either. We tapered the leg mortises, and the stretcher tenons go through the legs, and are wedged.
We both concluded that it was a fun weekend.