Joseph Goostray's Pattern Makers Chest - Part 2

Late last year I posted that I had been fortunate enough to visit Patrick Leaches 'Inner Sanctum' whilst taking a class with Peter Galbert in Massachusetts. Whilst there I bought an original pattern makers tool chest, which I was later to find out was owned and made around 1910, by a man by the name of Joseph Goostray. From the moment I clapped eyes on this chest I was mesmerised. But my time with it was fleeting.

It was delivered on a Saturday to Pete's place, where I had a quick look, took some photos then got back to finishing my chair. I then had to remove all the tools from the chest and pack them individually ready for shipping the next day. That was back in late October and I haven't seen it since.

Well yesterday I got the call I've been waiting for, for some months. Customs had inspected the boxes and they were cleared for collection. I couldn't get down to Dandenong quick enough, collected them and bought them straight home.

So this is nearly all the tools layed out on Kath's outdoor table. I ran out of room, with still a drawer full to go. I then had to go back to the original photos I took so I could replace all of the tools into the chest, just the way I found them.

I like to think I know what most hand tools are or have been used for, but I've got to admit that there are a number of tools in Joseph's chest that have me stumped. Great cooincidence is that my new neighbour just happens to have a father who was a pattern maker. So I reckon I'll be asking him a few questions soon.

It's great to have this little treasure back home with me and very soon it will take pride of place in our new shop in Kyneton. Please drop in to see it when we open in the near future....

Wood and Steam Festival - Mont De Lancey

Just a quick post this morning to let you know that I will be demonstrating Windsor Chair making at the Mont De Lancey Historic Homestead, 71 Wellington Road, Wandin, this coming weekend, the 24th & 25th. This festival celebrating all things wood, steel and steam has been going for a number of years now and I'm happy to be invited this year to demonstrate chair making. There are all manner of great displays so if you have time, make a day of it, come up and breath in some country air and take in some traditional hand craft. There are antique tool sales too for those of you, like me, who can't get enough of these great old quality tools.

I'll be doing a number of demo's throughout the weekend from spindle and crest rail shaving, shaping seats, drilling and reaming, steam bending and assembly of a few different chairs. If I get time in amongst it all, I'll try to make a perch too which will be available for sale. Should be a great weekend. Hope to see you there.

Kyneton Windsor Chairs

A great day at the office? Yep, I guess that sums it up in a nutshell.

Over the past few weeks, as any one on the East Coast of Australia would know, we have experienced immense rains and 'hundred year floods.' The effect has been devastating and not escaping the carnage have been our trees. Over the worst of the rains here in Kyneton we apparently had nearly 200mm, which is an immense amount of rain in anyones language.

So how has the rain damaged the trees here? Well, after more than ten years of drought the root structure of trees have been pretty severely compromised, especially the deciduous species . Then we have immense rains which these trees take every advantage of, drawing up vast amounts of water ( and weight ) through what's left of their roots, into trunks and finally into the canopies of these large and very old trees. The top heavy trees are then dangerously precarious, with little holding them. Add to the mix the howling winds that we experienced here at the same time and we have what occurred on the banks of the Campaspe River, below our magnificent Botanical Gardens.

Three Elm trees fallen amongst the other spectacular exotic species that surround them. Giant Sequoia, European Oaks, Douglas Fir and Blue Spruce to name but a few. Those familiar with our parks and gardens, both Melbourne and rural would have heard of Sir Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich Von Mueller, or Baron Von Mueller as he was commonly known, (read about him here if you haven't - http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mueller-sir-ferdinand-jakob-heinrich-von-4266 )

the brilliant Government Botanist. As well as being responsible for supplying Melbourne's Botanical Gardens with exotic species from around the globe, he did the same for these gardens in Kyneton, supplying plants and seeds from around the 1870's.

Now I haven't had a chance to count the growth rings on the largest of the Elm's properly yet, but I did count to 80 before I gave up and there was a way to go yet before I reached the bark! While I can't say when it was planted yet and by whom, I'll get the ball rolling by trying to get as much info as I can from the Kyneton Friends of the Botanical Gardens group. It would be great to have some further provenance of the planting of these trees. Here is the largest of them, being lifted onto the back of the the crane truck. It was the cleanest Elm log I have collected in years, ( If not ever ) perfectly centred heart and not a trace of any rot or other defect.

Here's my 660 Magnum next to it. Yep, that's a 3 foot bar on the saw. Standing next to it the log came up about 50mm ( 2" ) above my hip. From the 3 fallen Elms I salvaged 20 logs. They were remarkably tall and straight trees. This morning ( Kyneton Market day ) when I placed the logs onto my block in the main street, passers by stopped in droves to see these amazing logs find a temporary home before being milled. Our friend Mara at the cafe across the road ( Inner Biscuit - Best coffee in town! ) spent her morning explaining that they were to be used to make Windsor Chairs, which resonated very well with her customers.

Amongst the onlookers I spoke with a well known fella who's been in the town for a long time and has probably forgotten more about all things tree related than I'll ever know! A short conversation later and I'd met his mate of 40 years and was driving down the road to view the farm where I've been offered a virtually permanent place to mill as many logs as I need.

A good day at the office? Absolutely. In fact pretty much any day here now is great. Kyneton Elm for Kyneton Windsor chairs. Beautiful. I'll be trying to post some more updates on the cottage over the next few days, it's been taking up every hour I have at the moment, but the transformation over the past week has been immense and worth all the effort. I hope you'll agree.

Generosity

A simple word. The act of giving, without really expecting anything in return. It's a simple concept too, but not altogether common today. But today I was treated to a big helping of it and I have to say that being on the receiving end, it was a pleasant and humbling experience.

A while back I met Tim while demonstrating Windsor Chair making techniques over the course of a weekend. Then just recently he came to spend an evening with Pete Galbert and 50 or so others watching Pete describe and demonstrate his amazing chair making techniques. In fact Tim also had the foresight to commission Pete to make him a 'Perch' from Fijian Mahogany while he was here.

So when Tim emailed me last week asking if I would like a volunteer to help me with my renovations at the cottage, well I was a bit taken aback. Of course I said yes, then went through in my head what I thought were a list of things that may be of interest to someone offering some help. Tim promptly emailed back, pretty much just saying that he'd be happy to help with whatever needed to be done.

And so today he did. I shot down to the hardware store yesterday and bought a ute full of sleepers and cypress posts and today we put it all together in the form of a 2 level wood rack at the back of the new workshop. Nothing flimsy here, with 200 x 50 ( 8"x2" ) sleepers every 400mm (16") it should support all the wood I can fit in it, without a problem.

Next week I'll take a trip down the farm and pick up a pile of Stone Pine ( Pinus Pinea ) that I milled up about a year back. That will see out the roof of the rack, with a few sheets of iron on top.

Hot and dusty work, with the temp hitting 35c (95F) in the shade, but we broke the back of it and had a good chat about all things wood, chairs, growing up on the farm and a few things in between! We've even tee'd up a impromptu chair-making class in the very near future, where hopefully I can re-pay the favour.

It was a real pleasure to have Tim here and reaffirms that despite the ups and downs of life,

there are still some truly decent and generous people out there. Thanks Tim!

Continuous Arm Bending Strap

This morning I received a request from Tim in the U.S. regarding the bending strap I use to bend the crest or bow for the continuous arm windsor. This new and improved strap is result of using the original, which was essentially knocked together to get us through the first class we taught on the chair and then went on to serve us faithfully for another four full classes, bending countless dozens of crests.

That strap, a bit of packing strap welded to some square tube cut in half and with a few screws here and there to add grip was the result of a good friend Pete Mc Curly giving some good advice and suggesting the strap to control the breakages and delaminations that were occurring.

At that point I had hand shaved 23 crest rails to shape in one day and steamed them, only to lose all 23 to some form of breakage. Demoralising to say the least. With the new strap we had immediate success and went on have a 95% success rate.

What was also immediately apparent from that day was that "we weren't in Kansas any more Toto" or Tennessee, where we had steam bent white oak crest rails with Curtis Buchanan with spectacular ease, not even the slightest hint of failure and certainly no strap.

So while we don't have the beautiful ring porous hardwoods of the Americas' ideally suited for bending, we do have beautiful timber in it's own right and we just have to learn how to tame it.

As is widely known the strap essentially changes the point of neutrality in the piece from the centre, where there is expansion of the timber on the external side and compression of the timber in the internal side, to the very back of the external face, forcing the entire piece to compress instead. Now while this is nothing new, the issue with the continuous arm crest is bending the piece in two differing planes whilst maintaining that compression. This must also occur in good time so as not to allow the piece to cool.

So this is what we came up with. A 2 piece strap that contains the primary bend of the back and then allows the secondary bend to occur whilst maintaining the overall compression of the piece. To achieve this the shaped piece or blank is fitted into the main body of the strap.

The secondary straps are then placed into the clamping portion of the strap at the point where the taper occurs from the thicker back to the thin hand hold. The bolts are then tightened into locating holes, clamping the secondary straps into that curve. The serrations on the underside of the clamping pad grip the piece and limit slippage ( See below ). This has now taken care of the compression of the first bend of the back.

To contain the expansion of the handholds the secondary straps have stop-ends attached which simply house on the end of the blank. Pressure is maintained on the strap when the secondary bend is being performed to ensure that the stop-end remains in place and contains the expansion.

The reason for stainless steel? The strap is fitted to the piece before steam bending and is put into the steam box. There is simply not enough time to fit the strap to the hot piece after steaming and it would cool too quickly. The stainless has eliminated the staining from the original packing strap metal, leaving a blank which requires less cleanup afterwards.

Having said all that, there is still no substitute for clean riven or sawn, green, straight grained stock. The bending strap is a great aid, but it is not a cure-all. Unsuitable species, grain run out, branch inclusions or other defects will almost certainly result in a failure of some sort, strap or not.

As for dimensions, the strap should be fitted to the bending form you make. Mine is setup for an overall crest rail blank length of 1490mm ( a fraction over 58.5 inches ). The over all length of the main strap is 860mm ( 33.85" ). The secondary straps should be custom fitted to the length of your handhold. The bolt down clamps should just be large enough to accept the blank and the clamping pad.

My bending form is sitting at the bottom of a large pile of stuff while I set up my new shop, but when I get to it, I'll post the dimensions for those of you who'd like to make one.Any other questions or dimensions, please ask! Hope this is of some help. Here's Pete Galbert's thoughts on the strap.

http://www.chairnotes.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/hardy-lot.html

Blackwood in the Otways

Over the last few years I've spent a lot of time talking about the unique attributes of a Windsor Chairs and what sets them apart from your usual arm or side chair.

Those conversations inevitably revert back to the origin of the material, the way it is rived and shaped and ultimately the selection of the tree or log that those riven parts are taken from. Essentially making the chair from the tree. Jennie/John Alexander's famous book explains the process perfectly, but in essence dead straight grain is what you're looking for.

Just after Christmas Carl Karacsay rang me and offered an opportunity to head into the Otways and salvage some freshly felled Blackwood. This was no ordinary outing though, we were lucky enough to be collecting stock or offcuts that had been milled by Murray Kidman, one of the last timber workers in the Otways licensed to selectively log trees in this wonderful part of the state. Murray is well known as the supplier of exquisitely figured Blackwood and Satin Box to Maton Guitars.

As well as the figured stuff, he chases some lovely straight grained stuff for guitar sides. Perfect turning blanks for legs and arms! It was also a chance to get Pete Galbert into the bush to see some Australian chair timbers.

Here's Murray's sawmill. Yes, he is the sawmill. With his trusty 880 Stihl, Murray mills guitar sides and backs with the skill of a surgeon. No 'Alaskan Mill', no marking, no measuring just decades of practise and technique. How good is he? Below is a 6mm sliver Murray shaved off the side of one flitch. There would be few that could mill as accurately freehand on a bandsaw!

Not bad eh?

Here is a pile of freshly cut Blackwood neatly stacked on the stump it came from, free of dirt and any other impurities. Oh, and the Horse? Murray's Rhodesian Ridgeback.

And when it comes to low impact, this is about as low as it gets! All lugged out by hand. In this case a decent lump of very sort after Satin Box.

And a bit of sight seeing on the way. Victoria's 12 Apostles.

Good things in small packages

February again. Another birthday has come and gone and we are comfortably easing into our country life more and more each day. Tom is off to Kindergarten 3 days a week and I get to enjoy walking home with him from the cottage to our rental place each night after working all day. Small things, but happy times. Busy at the cottage every day now until we move in. But I couldn't think of anything else I'd rather be doing than working on our future home.

Wonder why it's taken me about 18 years to work out that I really missed living in the country? Oh well I guess they say that to climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first......

Two new openings for French doors at the back of the cottage. Framed nicely by the solid beam and posts. Lisa has even got the first of her fruit trees in. She has chosen Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples, mulberries, white and yellow nectarines, Beurre Bosc pear, lime and of course a lemon tree! Should be a great fruit salad in a year or so.

Here' s one of the mortices all done and in situ. The pegs are Ironbark, they started out as 40mm square stock that had been out in the elements for years, so by the time they were split and shaved down to 16mm (5/8") I just managed to get one peg per blank. I reckon I could have almost sharpened them and nailed them in, they were that hard!

This little guy showed himself as I dug out some rubble from an existing trench in the back yard. It's said that the first sign of decline of an eco-system is the loss of amphibians, so hopefully this bodes well for our little back yard! Anyone know what sort of frog he/she is?

And last but not least, here's my first pork sausages from my new sausage attachment for the Kitchen Aid, Tom and Lisa's great birthday present to me. The recipe is my Dad's from when he used to make them en masse for dozens of Melbourne's best restaurants.

Anyone who samples them says they are the best pork snags going around and I'm firmly in that camp. As you can see they're that good I had to make a rissole out of the leftovers! Washed down with a bottle of local cider from Harcourt. The small things are often the best....

Full circle.

It's funny how you hear things about family, distant or close that seem to resonate with you. A friend who had built an entire stone building/shed, once told me that years afterwards he learnt that an ancestor was a stone mason. He was sure that this was why he chose to build with bluestone, despite never having laid so much as a brick beforehand. Now those of you who know me, know that I'm not exactly pre-disposed to the paranormal or such stuff. Hocus pocus I say.

The name of this blog, Rundell & Rundell? Well as well as being our name, it is what Lisa and I intend on naming our business and shop when we build it, here in Kyneton. A connection to the past? Yes, my distant ancestor was Philip Rundell, first of Rundell & Pickett fame and then onto the famous ( in some circles! ) company, Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, who were silversmiths and jewellers to the Royal family. Pretty obvious choice and besides,  I think it's got a nice ring to it.

So fast forward to our trip to the U.S. I find myself standing amongst the treasure trove of tools in Patrick Leach's garage. The best of every antique tool, but my eye just keeps being drawn back to his large bucket of carpenters or framers slicks. For those who are unsure, a slick is a chisel on some serious growth hormones! I choose one, a Whitherby, 3 inches ( 75mm ) wide and well over a foot ( about 400mm I reckon ) long, before the handle.

Of all the other tools I pack to ship back home to Australia, the slick and my beloved Stanley 608c are the only two I can't bear to part with and I pack them in my suitcase.

So what, you say?

Well, when I turned the new handle for it about a month ago, I must have stared at it for weeks, just waiting for the chance to use it. I must have picked it up a hundred times and felt its weight and heft.

I then get my chance, forming the mortices and tenons on my timber frame for the cottage. I even post about it on this blog.

A good friend, Leigh emails me and comments on Jan 30th,
Quote "The construction in Kyneton looks as though it is progressing well.  A three inch slick is a real shipwright's or bridge builder's tool - I am sure it is very satisfying to see it do its job! " Un-quote.

Again, so what?

Yesterday, I travelled up to Bendigo with my Dad, his brother Stan and my cousin Craig, Stan's son. Stan took us to see the grave of my Great Great Grandfather, Joshua Upcott Rundell. Stan had found the unmarked grave site from original records and maps of the cemetery, had placed a plaque on the grave and re-layed the original hand made bricks which outlined the grave, but were found sunken under  ground.

So as we are standing there, I turn to Stan and ask,"what was his occupation?"
"Bridge builder," says Stan.

Sitting here tonight I search the records on the net for Joshua's father, William Rundell, born around 1787. His occupation? Look down the bottom.

Name: William Rundell

Given Name: William

Surname: Rundell

Sex: M

Birth: 1787-1788 in Maker, Cornwall, UK

Christening: 20th Jan 1788 Maker, Cornwall

Death: 1875 in Devonport?, Devonshire?, England?

_UID: E71687A6021B4BD3B9C090A6F21184C96496

Change Date: 5 Apr 2010 at 10:25

Note:

Shipwright

And where did Joshua Upcott live? Sutton Grange, he owned the pub there. Sutton Grange is just over 30 mins drive North of here. And I thought I really had no previous affiliation with the region. 


Turns out it wasn't just my carpenter Grandfather, Charles' blood coursing through my veins. That slick has been waiting for me for the longest time.

One down..

With a sigh of relief the first of the big macrocarpa beams and two posts were man ( & woman ) handled into position today with the help of Lisa and my ever reliable Dad. With Tom supervising too, of course.

It made such an immediate change to the feel of the room and reenforced the vision that I have had for the little place since we first bought it. I can almost imagine the view through the back doors and out towards the green back yard with maple, apple, pear and birch trees planted along the fence.

Here's the pencil pine post that will support the next beam. This came from a farm in Gruyere, up past Coldstream and was just right for the job. I will ratchet strap the whole frame together on the weekend and peg the joints together. Another good excuse to get back onto the shavehorse too, to shave the pegs. That should close up the small gaps and tighten up the whole deal.

And while I messed about fitting the mortises, good 'ol Dad did the unenviable job of pulling up the cracked and damaged floor boards in what will be the master bedroom.

Turns out they had been 2nd hand way back when, when they were originally put into this little place. But they were too far gone to keep with most of the tongues split off and some gaps up to 5mm across. Pity.
I'm seeing a lot of that in the house, now that we have it back to bare bones. Very old studs in one part of the house that had definitely been used before. Full of holes and black as tar. Original split wood stumps under the house. All the signs of a house built during the depression when times were certainly tough and nothing was wasted. Isn't funny how we've managed to come full circle with regard to re-cycling, but for a whole other range of reasons?

The new roof is the next big job. No colourbond or zincalume here. Traditional galvanised iron, which laid right, will definitely outlast me. And I get to work again with Jim Carew from Koo Wee Rup, the Master Plumber I did my apprenticeship with. They say he hails from Snowy River up by Kosciusko's side....... or so he reckons anyway.

No one here but us......

Possums.

Wonderful furry little marsupial friends, big brown eyes and curly little tails.

Fun to watch as they wander through the tree tops, eating seeds and young tree shoots.

Not so fun when your balancing up a ladder, jemmy bar in one hand and claw hammer in the other, pulling off the last cement sheet from the skillion roof in your house and one appears four inches from your face!

I'd like to say that as the sheet dropped and Mr.Possum presented himself at eye level, close enough to breath on me, that I calmly said "hello" and continued on my way.

More accurately, I dropped both hammer and bar stumbled backward off the ladder and onto the floor, muttering expletives under my breath and wondering what the hell was glaring back at me.

Of course my brush tailed buddy was completely uninterested about the whole episode  and calmly sat there while I took a photo for my boy Tom. I left a lump of stud leaning against the wall up into the ceiling for him and this morning he was gone.

What wasn't gone though were the big posts that I had to man handle into position today. All three ended  up cut to length and sitting in place ready for measuring the beams in between. I even managed to cut the tenons on the 1st beam in what will be the opening to the kitchen. I've got to say at 100mm long and 50mm ( 4 " x 2" ) thick it's by far the biggest tenon I've ever cut. But then again, this ain't no Shaker hall table.

Best part though was finally getting to use my 3" slick that I bought from Patrick Leach in Massachusetts  while I was there late last year. I've turned a Gidgee handle for it and it's a joy to use.

Here it is next to my little No.3 Stanley, which it dwarfs. I have re-thought my timing on getting this whole thing together, especially when cutting all mortises and tenons by hand. Sometimes it's better to take your time ( or admit your slow at it ! ) and savour these enjoyable parts of a build, rather than force yourself to follow a timeline and rush things and that's just what I'm doing. ....and loving it.

So how do I get that, in there?

So here is the latest photo of the inside of the back of the little cottage. As you can see I've sort of just kept taking the studs out that don't look like an open plan dining room and kitchen! Ok, I've put a little more thought into it than that. But that's certainly what it felt like today.

From where I've taken this photo, facing the Northern side of the house, there used to be two walls directly in front of me. The bathroom and laundry walls. These were a combination of add hock half studs, no noggins and patch work from who knows how far back.

Added to this, the wall between the laundry and bathroom was so full of holes from the old galvanised water pipes, new copper pipes and two generations of electrical wiring that it was amazing that it was still standing. A new hardwood one will go back in it's place, extending the bathroom in size and incorporating the laundry in the process. The old laundry, half of which will now be bathroom will give up the rest of its area to a nice little compact kitchen, tucked into an alcove of sorts.

This morning I screwed the top parts of the studs in the old kitchen wall to a hanger at the top end of the skillion roof you can see on the left. The bottoms of the studs were then cut away, after I had propped up that hanger with a couple of steel Acro-props. I love these things. You can literally prop up all manner of structural parts of your house with them while you build. Great.

You can then see the two large macrocarpa posts, on the right and far centre, that I have propped up in readiness for marking out and cutting of mortises tomorrow. Where the closest Acro-prop can be seen, another similar sized post will be installed. Two large 100 x 200mm laminated macrocarpa beams will be mortise, tenoned and pegged into place between all three posts.

Difference between this solid timber frame and one where the building is being stood up, such as a barn raising, is that I have a right angled frame which is mortised and tenoned together with angled support struts also mortised and tenoned between post and beam. Now while that is nothing new, the issue is how to get that whole structure together into that right angled void, which has top plates above it on both sides and also an external wall on one side and an internal wall on another. It cant be stood up individually as the walls wont allow the mortises to be fitted in situ and the skillion roof stops it in the other direction. If that makes sense?

So I've come to the conclusion that the whole thing will need to be cut, fitted and assembled in the room nearby by me and 'walked' into place with a combination of brute force and a delicate touch. I hope I can muster both on the day it goes in. Which at this point is 7.00AM Saturday morning. That's when I have a bloke coming around to help me do just that.

I've even sharpened up my new ( very old ) 3" framing slick and turned a new handle for it too. Looking forward to using it in earnest tomorrow. Off to bed to get some rest before the mortising begins in the morning!

A Fine Finish.

Time to take a breath again after the final Peter Galbert Chair course where 13 guys came and made a Fan Back side chair. All of the chairs came up really well and the final result was a credit to everyones hard work. Doing a chair class with Peter is not just a class in making a single chair. He shares techniques and information generously and essentially teaches participants how to make 'any' windsor chair, such is his comprehensive coverage of the subject.

Here's Pete taking the guys through the beginning of shaping their crest rails.

It was also great to see so many previous students of ours coming back to make another chair with us. Some are on their 3 and 4th chair! Above is Carl Karacsay's fiddle back Blackwood chair with fiddle back Satin Box spindles. It's spectacular and a reflection of Carl's great workmanship and skill. Carl and I actually took Peter out into the Otways to harvest Blackwood and Satin Box while he was here......but that's a whole other entry!

And here is a collection of the chairs from the Fan Back class, plus my Yellow Bird Cage chair in the back ground, a Continuous Arm Rocker in Pitch Black and Barn Red from the pre Xmas class and a Perch that Pete made out of Fijian Mahogany. If you'd like to see all the smiling faces of the guys who made them, have a look a Peter's latest blog entry here - http://www.chairnotes.blogspot.com/

So you may remember from my last post that I'd got the Bird Cage together but had some final detailing to finish the chair, like carving the false Birds Mouth mitred corners. So a few days before the Fan Back class Pete took us through how to carve them. And as silly as it might sound, you pretty much just carve away all the wood that doesn't look like a birds mouth! So with a flurry of drawknives, carving chisels and even a patternmaker's rasp or two, the mitres revealed themselves from the lump of wood that was once there. Above you can see one almost finished.

So with the joinery completed, crunch time had arrived. Usually, with impish grin, Pete had been working on me for weeks to paint my chair with milk paint as opposed to oiling it. What Pete may not have known was that I've actually painted most of my chairs, with the exception of a Huon Pine and Black Heart Sassafras Continuous Arm I made, but I admit there was a part of me that was having issues with painting that one piece Elm seat.

But when someone like Pete offers to walk you through one of his exceptional paint finishes, you don't pass up the opportunity! As you probably already know, there is more info on Pete's blog about paint finishes than you could poke a very large stick at, but here's the process in brief in case you haven't seen it.

So first, after sanding, scraping and re-sanding the seat top and tops of the arm holds, the first base coat of Mustard Milk Paint went on. This was a very thin coat, being careful not to go over any previously painted areas, as the paint dries so fast that the wet coat will delaminate the not-quite dry coat and lift both off the surface. The paint is not applied with the brush as evenly as say you might with an enamel paint, but more in a hashed manner, being careful to work to the live edge.

The next day the seat and arm hold tops were sanded back again and a second thin coat of Mustard was applied in the same manner. This was left overnight too.

From memory, Pete gave me the recipe for the colour he painted his Spring Love Seat. See the opening page of his website, which I have admired for years.

So now the mustard was put away and the Marigold Yellow chosen instead. This was mixed on a 12:1 ratio with Lexington Green and equal parts water. Use warm water ( not hot ) and strain the mixture carefully. I used pantyhose ( yes the 16 yr old shop assistant did look at me sideways when I bought them ) as I didn't have a paint filter and it worked fine. Again the paint is applied in thin coats, working to the live/wet paint edge. Keep the left over in the fridge to extend it's lifespan.

So here is the chair with it's first coat of 'Spring Yellow' ( a name which I have just made up! ). A second coat went on the next day. A good rule of thumb when painting chairs ( thanks Pete ) is "if your not looking at it your not painting it." It is amazing just how much you can miss on round parts which are in difficult places, so make sure you check to see that everything is covered evenly. A total of two top coats were applied in the Spring Yellow.

The whole chair was then burnished with 0000 steel wool. You can also apparently use 3M pads. See Pete's blog for more detail on this. But steel wool was all I had, so steel wool it was. The chair all of a sudden took on a completely different look. The crisp detail of the concave curves at the back of the arm holds sprung into life. The curves of the seat took shape against the sharp line of the spindle deck and above all else the chisel cut facets of the false mitres shone. Yes.... I did get a little excited. This burnishing can be taken as far as you please, to the point where you can cut through the paint and start to reveal the beautiful grain and colour of the timber underneath. Then a thorough clean with micro-fibre cloth to remove the paint and wool residue.

 Then the fun stuff began. A fresh batch of straight Marigold Yellow was made and applied into the 'joints or nodes' of the bamboo turnings. This truly accentuates the detail of the chair and shows that the chair is not just yellow. Then on to the Danish Oil. Applied in the usual manner. You can use all manner of oil finishes, shellac or whatever your preference may be.
And here's the result after one coat....

Sorry about the poor resolution. I was so impressed after the first coat of oil, I just whipped out the iphone and snapped a pic. There's two or more coats of oil to go. I'll take a full size photo of the finished article, not under the terrible light that fluorescent lights produce and which don't do justice to the true colour of the chair. But all in all a fine finish to a beautiful Galbert chair design. Hope you like it.

Now it's back to the cottage. I've given myself a deadline to get us in and settled. It's a bare frame at present so there's some work to do!

A Bird in the hand with a Perch.

Well it's been a few days since Xmas now and the dust has finally settled after a very busy past few months. Lisa and I have finally had a few days to get into the cottage and do some work and it's tracking along nicely, the bad 80's carport came off yesterday and more of the heavy, wavy fibrous plaster found it's way into a skip.
Today though is a day of rest, phew. Time to mow some lawns, get some things done around the rental house and organise myself.  And also go over a few things that I picked up from making the Bird Cage Arm Chair with Peter Galbert just before Christmas.

We started with some fine one piece slabs of Elm from a large log that we milled a couple of years ago now and have been air drying ever since. Slabs of Elm of this quality and size are getting to be a real rarity now, with Dutch Elm Disease and Elm beetles wiping out Elm trees all over the world. Victoria would have to be one of the last strongholds of large old growth Elm trees around now and I certainly prize any logs that come my way for milling. Anyway enough about milling, ( save for another post ) getting back to that chair....

Here is the chair with the stiles/back posts drilled, reamed and seated in the carved seat. The arm posts have also been reamed and seated and those big lumps of oak hanging off them are the blanks for the carved arm holds. When you look at the chair like this it's easy to gloss over just what is involved in getting the chair to this stage. The stile holes for instance are drilled at a particular angle and sight line
( see some of them marked on the seat blank in the first photo ) but are reamed at a different angle. This gives the bent stiles some life and accentuates their fluid lines. No walk in the park there I can tell you!

Then the arm holds have to be drilled and carefully reamed with a cello reamer at exactly the right angle to seat firmly on to the arm post but also end up in perfect alignment with where they will be mortised into the stiles. Those big lumps then have to be turned on the lathe to create the tenon end. A little unnerving when you first see those things 'wurrring' around on the lathe in front of you!

The stiles then have to be drilled to create the stepped mortise hole, which protrudes through the rear of the stile at 3/8" but is a little over an inch at the front. Sorry, Imperial measurement is still like Cantonese arithmetic to me! Of course this mortise hole is also offset one inch to the outside of the arm post, again to accentuate the flowing lines of the chair parts and not make the arm holds look rigid and stiff. Here's another view from the top to get an idea of what I mean...

Here is another perspective of the stile and mortised arm hold, as you can see there are no straight lines here to reference from. In fact it's all done with smoke and mirrors! Ok there's no smoke, but you do use mirrors to drill the mortise hole.

From here the undercarriage is assembled in the usual fashion and glued and wedged into the seat. The steam bent spindles are then roughed into shape and the lower, turned and steam bent crest rail is then mortise and tenoned into the stiles.

After this comes the upper or top crest rail. The set up for drilling the 3/8" mortise into this part is quite complex with wooden clamps, bevel gauges and two sets of mirrors all into the mix. Suffice to say, it's a handful, but executed well the results are terrific with a perfectly mated joint which will later be carved from the big bulbous turning into a false birds mouth mitre joint.

Here you can see the rough turning of the top crest rail on right and on the left the rough shape of what will be carved has been shaped on the bandsaw. The spindles are roughed in here too.

And here is where I got to at the end of five days. All assembled and fitted, spindles mortised through the crest rails and just the false mitres left to carve and some more shaping of the spindle blades. I'm very happy with how it came up. Here's the side view where you can appreciate the steam bending a little more.

Oh and in the moments of down time and just to add a little pressure to the whole situation I made one of Peter's 'Perch' type 3 legged stools at the same time.

 These little fellas are great fun and made to be used in places where you literally just want to 'prop' yourself, like a workshop setting or behind a counter in a shop. I've had a piece of Huon Pine sitting around for years waiting for the right job. So into the perch it went. American Black Walnut for the legs, as a nice chocolate coloured contrast to the golden yellow of the Huon.

It's not oiled yet, there's a little more carving of the seat needed and the legs need to be trimmed to length,  but you get the picture. I tossed a piece of the same Huon to Pete and some New Guinea Rosewood too for legs.

And here's what he whipped up! Finished with Danish Oil it really shines. The contrast of the Huon and the NG Rosewood is magic too. Pete made this one for Lisa as a thank you for all her hard work in marketing his trip, writing press releases to magazines and newspapers and organising the Seminar night on the 12th of Jan. Thanks Pete. It's a work of art from a master chair maker.

Out with the old and in with the....... older.

Here is the latest with our little house in Kyneton. As you can see from the previous photo in a past post, the bad 50's fibro verandah with steel pipe posts is gone and a new verandah sits neatly in it's place, with some temporary struts in place. The verandah posts are in the process of being made by me, just after Xmas.

Also in the new year the roof will be replaced with some new, very traditional, Aussie galvanised iron and new gutters which will return around the gable ends, where you can see the new fascia boards have been placed.
I'd love to say that all this great work has been mine, but with the past few weeks of assisting Peter Galbert in teaching windsor chair making, I haven't had time to so much as hammer a nail in here. This great job has been done by my Uncle, Alex Hanssen and his off-siders, who have done a fine job of translating my descriptions and scribbled drawings into fine carpentry on the house. But there's much more to come yet.

And just what style is this previously non-descript place being transformed into I hear you say???
A Shaker cottage. Well, as close to one as we can get with the basic shape we have to work with.
When I first saw this little house, with all it's downsides, rusty roof, sagging floor and collapsed stumps my first thoughts were what great potential it had, not how bad it looked.

Lisa and I have always loved Shaker furniture and it forms a strong part of my furniture making influences, so what better style of house to live in than one we enjoy so much?

Here is a photo of The Dwelling House at Canterbury Shaker Village ( thanks Lonely Planet Images! ) my inspiration for the little verandah. But instead of the turned verandah posts I want to pay homage to the iconic tapered Shaker legs found on their side tables and night stands and so our verandah will have Macrocarpa posts, lightly tapered from the top to the bottom, giving a light feel to the structure. Then after the re-roofing and gutters have been installed I will finish trim the whole thing to closer resemble the detail on all the Shaker buildings we studied at Hancock Village, like what you can see below in the returned fascia and gutter on this Hancock building.

So then it will be off with the awful 80's carport and equally bad front fence and gates and a new fence in keeping with a fence detail I have seen in a lot of the period buildings in Kyneton, but also fitting in  with our Shaker aesthetic. So before long this mid 1900's house will closer resemble a crisp and clean version of an 1800's classic.

Oh and have a very Merry Xmas and a safe and happy New Year from my family to yours. Cheers!

These chairs Rock!

So yesterday we came to the end of the first of Peter Galbert's Windsor Chair classes in Australia. In fact I think it would be fair to say that this is the first time any renowned chair maker from the U.S. has come to Australia to teach classes purely in chair making.

This first class was the Continuous Arm Rocking Chair. 12 positions were advertised and booked out very quickly. By the time the class came around there were people pleading to be added to the class, but at 12 the workshop was stretched to it's limit.

As a whole the class was a great success and everyone completed a great example of the chair. This was in no small part due to the Peter's masterful approach to teaching and reading the progress of everyone during the week.

Here's Pete fine tuning the rockers of one of the chairs.

Another factor being an ingenious jig that Pete developed over the course of the week which allowed the bottoms of the legs to be routed in situ, after being glued to the seat and ensured perfect alignment and minimal fine tuning. Having used Pete's original method while making my rocker in Massachusetts, 

( even though that was a great technique in itself ) I can vouch for just how much time and effort this saved. Great work again Mr. Galbert.

Here's the back of one of the 12, dry fitted and being readied for glueing. They really are a beautifully proportioned and compact rocking chair.

The finished product. This one is Daryl's, who came across Bass Straight again for his second class with us. Another fine chair mate, well done........ I think the blue tape is a band aid, the chair might have nicked itself while shaving! We had another interstate addition this class too, in Wayne from N.S.W., who also turned out about as good a rocking chair as I've seen. Nice work Wayne and hopefully we'll see you down South again sometime to make another one.

So today I have one day of rest before embarking on our next class with Pete, his Bird Cage Arm Chair. This is one of Pete's most complex chairs and usually reserved for 7 days of hard work and as Pete would say, time "down the rabbit hole." Oh, and this time I'm not assisting this master chair maker with the class, I'm a student again and we're going to try and squeeze it into 5 days! Better get the coffee on and a fresh supply of Berocca..... wish me luck.