Chair making

[caretaker]

I am a bit surprised when my daughter tells me she would like to make a chair, now the only woodwork she has done in the past is to cut up logs with a chain saw.
How can I help with out taking over, I have said she is welcome to use my work shop (shed) but as for what design of chair would be the ease's to do.
My daughter is a grown lady and her partner is a bricklayer and has said he will build her a work room if the chair is a success.
Any ideas would help.
Reg

 

[Jacob]

Send her off on a chair making course perhaps? There's one here http://www.greenwoodwork.co.uk/website/ ... aking.html
and there's dozens of others if you google.

 

[AndyT]

I think Jacob's idea is a very good one, especially if she does not already have woodworking experience. I went on a short course at Clisset Wood a few years ago and can highly recommend it - a lovely setting, right in the woodland, with a skilled and welcoming instructor.

 

[blackrodd]

I am a bit surprised when my daughter tells me she would like to make a chair, now the only woodwork she has done in the past is to cut up logs with a chain saw.
How can I help with out taking over, I have said she is welcome to use my work shop (shed) but as for what design of chair would be the ease's to do.
My daughter is a grown lady and her partner is a bricklayer and has said he will build her a work room if the chair is a success.
Any ideas would help.
Reg

How about going to the good old library and get a how to book on chair making, to you're chosen style and both make 1 each. You can demonstrate and assist your'e "student" through the whole process. You both may even enjoy it!
There will be a cutting list and advice on finishing etc. regards Rodders

 

[ColeyS1]

What about finding a battered and bruised one she'd like to copy then get her to disassemble it so she can see how it's made ?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

[Cottonwood]

Do a copy of an Irish gibson, hedgrow or fireside chair, they dont come much more simpler or basic than that form-a simple plank seat, 4 whittled legs, 5 or 6 spindles and a comb. No complex turnings or steam bending involved, and if you get the proportions and angles riight they are incredibly comfortable. You could do the entire job using a saw, axe, brace and bit and spokeshave.

 

[Baldhead]

Send her off on a chair making course perhaps? There's one here http://www.greenwoodwork.co.uk/website/ ... aking.html
and there's dozens of others if you google.

+1

Baldhead

 

[Sgian Dubh]

... my daughter tells me she would like to make a chair, now the only woodwork she has done in the past is to cut up logs with a chain saw. Reg

The simpler the better if you're determined to help her (as cottonwood suggested) particularly as she apparently has no useful woodworking experience relevant to the job. Chairmaking can in certain cases be one of the most complex and demanding of woodworking tasks, and no place for someone with virtually no woodworking skills to venture.

Jacob's suggestion of a chairmaking course is an excellent one too, perhaps better than you trying to help her, especially if you're not a skilled woodworker yourself ideally with some teaching skills, even though this is your daughter: perhaps that should because the learner is your daughter where teaching family members can be fraught with disagreement and acrimony and things can sometimes turn a bit unpleasant. At least if she goes off on a short chairmaking course the tutor will have hopefully been through it several times already and developed strategies for dealing with novices, have all the gear and parts in place, have all the fixes and shortcuts to hand, and students can develop a bond through a shared learning experience, etc ... and most importantly if things go badly wrong you won't get any of the blame, ha, ha. Maybe you could fund or partially fund the course as a Christmas or birthday present? Slainte.

 

[custard]

Would a stool meet the brief? Half the technical challenges and a quarter of the time.

 

[Togalosh]

Send her off on a chair making course perhaps? There's one here http://www.greenwoodwork.co.uk/website/ ... aking.html
and there's dozens of others if you google.

Wow -- that looks ace !

Also (as mentioned above) a stool is a good start while waiting for a course to come round.
A friend of mine has a stool that her brother made at school, it's simple enough but stunning in it's simplicity & choice of wood (Elm)..but would she need a stool?

One type of African chair is just 2 planks of wood..so you can make a chair as simple or complex as you choose.

 

[Woodchips2]

Send her off on a chair making course perhaps? There's one here http://www.greenwoodwork.co.uk/website/ ... aking.html
and there's dozens of others if you google.

+1. I agree with Jacob, I've been on a chair-making course with Gudrun Leitz and you come away with a chair of your own design and the inspiration to make more. Plus you learn green woodwork which doesn't take a lot on money to set up and doesn't give you dust on the lungs

Regards Keith

 

[yetloh]

As you are in Hampshire, James Mursell's Windsor Workshop over the border in West Sussex does excellent courses snd he is a really nice guy.

Jim

 

[caretaker]

Thanks for all the reply's and tips, The stool sounds a good idea.
I will tell her about lessons as well, she lives in Wiltshire.
I remember my first thing I made at school, a tray with dovetail joints, my woodwork teacher used to throw it across the shop when inspecting my work, god rest Mr Stap. (1958)
Thanks again Reg

 

[AndyT]

Another thought - although most chair making does need quite advanced skills, there is a design which can be made from standard size stock and is almost all just cutting to length and screwing together - the Adirondack chair. Loads of plans available on line as they are very popular in the US. Great for sitting out in the garden on a warm sunny day.

 

[Cottonwood]

Another thought - although most chair making does need quite advanced skills, there is a design which can be made from standard size stock and is almost all just cutting to length and screwing together - the Adirondack chair. Loads of plans available on line as they are very popular in the US. Great for sitting out in the garden on a warm sunny day.

A good sudgestion! Toolwise you could get away with using just a tape measure, square, saw and a drill driver if you got some decent planed boards. Or you could recycle some pallets in which case you might also need a nail bar to remove nails, and a plane (hand or electric) or a sander to tidy them up a bit.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

The courses are a good idea, but I'd start by buying a Veritas Tenon Cutter (probably the 3/4in or 1in models), and get her to make a simple three-legged stool. In Living Woods mag recently we ran an article about taking a group of 12 flash young Londonites into a woodland to teach them some basic woodland skills. They each made a chair or stool using the Tenon Cutter, with wedged through tenons. It was brilliant fun, and they loved it.

 

[Jacob]

.....I'd start by buying a Veritas Tenon Cutter (probably the 3/4in or 1in models), ......

I'd start by learning how to cut tenons without a gadget, otherwise you are constrained to one size, unless you buy a set, then you are constrained to 5 sizes (@ £150 :roll: ). Think of the wood you could buy! OK for flash young Londonites who only do it once.
It's easy enough to size the end of a rod with a template of some sort, (coin etc) and then work to that with draw knife or block plane, and a very useful skill to acquire.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

If we're talking green wood, getting your tenons right is not quite as simple as it sounds. You turn (or whatever) the tenons first, let them dry, then fit into the green legs (or seat) so that it all shrinks nicely together with no glue. To get this right means either a very good guess of how much your wood will shrink, or trimming the tenons down to final size after drying. But it is perhaps better not to do that, because you can use the fact that a tenon turned round when green will end up oval when dry - by assembling with the long axis of the oval tenon in the direction of the grain in the leg (or seat), you can get a tigher fit without splitting.

Not quite sure what you need a tenon cutter for, but woodworkers better than me like them, so they must have some use.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

Not quite sure what you need a tenon cutter for, but woodworkers better than me like them, so they must have some use.

I doubt I'm a better woodworker, but they are a really good way to size the tenon, if nothing else. I don't much like the obvious shoulders they leave, and shave those away afterwards with a spokeshave or drawknife. Children love using the tenon cutters, producing all those curly shavings, but they also love using a spokeshave. It's the best of both worlds. Mike Abbott has written about getting the right size of hole for the right size of tenon so that the shrinking works perfectly. But I wouldn't worry too much, just have a go, and wait for one to fail and learn from that lesson.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

For rails on chairs Mike Abbott recommends in his great book Living Wood using a 5/8in tenon cutter on the rails, which are then left to dry by the fire or in an oven, and then a 9/16in auger bit into the wet legs for a tight fit.