A Welsh Stick Chair for the Apprentice

In the course of researching for The Life and Work of John Brown, I’ve had the privilege to examine a wide variety of Welsh stick chairs including examples by John Brown and Chris Williams, as well as a variety of historic chairs held in the collection of the St Fagans National Museum of History (including the chair used for the cover image of John’s Welsh Stick Chair book). The chairs I’ve looked at in person have then been supplemented by those photographed in Richard Bebb’s comprehensive survey of Welsh vernacular furniture. I’ve looked at a few Welsh stick chairs now.

The Apprentice sitting on the chair my grandfather made for me some 32 years ago.

Vernacular forms are rarely homogenous – regional tastes vary, together with the timber available to the makers, not to mention the skill levels of the makers themselves. There may even be technological changes which impact construction methods over time. And all of this goes double for a chair making tradition that spans hundreds of years. The historic examples Chris Williams and I have examined have demonstrated a range of techniques and styles, emphasising that the Welsh stick chair tradition was vibrant and constantly changing. Some of those early chairs have lodged themselves at the back of my mind for some time – an itch demanding to be scratched. Scratching that itch requires further research, both in terms of closer examination of some of the chairs (as well as other contemporaneous examples), and building them at my workbench. This is a long term project, and I’ll writing about the research and building the chairs as I dig deeper into it.

A 90 second sketch of the Apprentice’s stick chair. Hopefully the comb won’t be as wonky on the finished piece!

One of the chairs that caught my eye was a dainty child-sized stick chair from the late eighteenth century, held in the collection at St Fagans. This five-stick chair had an unusual trapezoid shaped seat and three tapered legs, topped by a very gently curved comb. I’ve spent months trying to shake this chair out of my head, and finally had to accept that the only way to do so would be to built it. A plan began to form. When I was three or four, my grandfather built me a desk and chair set. This set, which remains to this day at my parents’ house, was a constant feature of my childhood and I spent countless hours sitting at the desk drawing and playing. With the Apprentice’s birthday on the horizon later this summer, I got to talking to Dr Moss about the stick chair rattling around my head, and about my memories of the desk and chair I’d had as a child. We agreed that an excellent birthday present for the Apprentice would be her own stick chair to go in the reading corner of our lounge, next to my Chesterfield arm chair. The Apprentice adores books and reading, so this seemed like a natural gift. Hopefully in years to come it will mean as much to her as the chair and desk my grandfather built means to me.

This large oak board is left over from the Policeman’s Boot Bench, and will provide the seat, sicks and comb of the Apprentice’s stick chair

With the very kind help of one of the furniture conservators at St Fagans, I now have a detailed set of dimensions for this chair, in addition to the notes and photographs I took during my last field trip. This weekend I marked the conclusion of another trip round the sun, and the focus for the bank holiday is on family celebrations and a much needed get-away with Dr Moss. But no birthday would be complete without a brief moment of workshop time, and so last night I broke down the stock for the Apprentice’s stick chair. Rummaging through my scraps pile located a large piece of oak left over from the Policeman’s Boot Bench which will provide the seat, comb and sticks. Further digging found some oak thick enough for the three legs. A few minutes on the saw benches with my Disston D8 and Skelton Panel Saw was all it took to harvest the components, which I will leave to acclimatise for a week or so while I finish up the campaign stools. Once the campaign stools are wrapped up I will build the Apprentice her stick chair in time for her birthday. This should be a fun build!

This part of the process never gets old – my 1900 era Disston D8 and the staked saw benches.

The octagonalisation campaign continues

My inspiration

One of the furniture styles I first connected with when I started thinking about building furniture in addition to guitars was campaign furniture. I’d read Chris’ blog posts about campaign furniture and my interest was piqued sufficiently to pre-order his book in 2014. It arrived just before the Easter weekend, and I spent the bank holiday reading it cover to cover. Campaign furniture is still one of my favourite furniture forms, and there are several reasons why it speaks to me. The first is the combination of utility and style. I tend not to find flashy furniture pieces all that appealing, and the clean lines of campaign furniture accented with brass pulls and corner brackets fits well with my tastes. Then there is the emphasis on functionality – these are rugged pieces designed to be broken down into manageable packages and easily transported. If only I’d had a set of campaign furniture during my student and itinerant early career years.

Laying out octagons the easy way

There is also a much more emotive reason why I’m drawn to campaign furniture. My great-great-grandfather served in the British Army in the late nineteenth century. Listed as an ironmoulder and blacksmith in contempraneous records, at some point he enlisted (as many working class Scots did when work was sparse), and served on the North-West Frontier – what would now be the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. All three of my great-great-grandfather’s sons served in the military, with my great-grandfather enlisting in the Argyl & Sutherland Highlanders during the First World War. His son, my grandfather, then enlisted with the Royal Scots before taking a commission in the Indian Army during the Second World War. This commission took him to the same area of the North-West Frontier as my great-great-grandfather (his grandfather). I remember from my childhood a pair of photographs showing my great-great-grandfather and my grandfather at the same hill fort on the North-West Frontier, two generations apart. The fact that two separate generations of the same working class family from Falkirk served in the same area of the Indian subcontinent is something that never ceases to amaze me.

Sapele, maple, and ash shavings.

And so, furniture from the British Empire, and particularly that associated with military service, has a family resonance. Which is all very well and good, but what exactly does this have to with woodwork? Well, I shall explain. For the past two years we have throw a garden party for the Apprentice’s birthday. We don’t have much in the way of garden seating, and when I was re-organising my woodstore at the end of the saw cabinet build, I realised that I had enough stock for a couple of the folding campaign stools out of Chris’ Campaign Furniture book. This is a probject that has been on my to-do list ever since I read the book, and with the Apprentice’s next birthday only a couple of months away this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Reviewing the available stock I realised I had enough material for four sets of stool legs – one set in each of ash and maple, and two in sapele. This will give me plenty of practice at the lathe (another reason why this project appeals). Finally, a quick project can be a nice palate cleanser after a major build.

Octagonalisation is a campaign that will never end

After six-squaring the stock, I decided to octagonalise it before turning it to round. More experienced turners than me will no doubt be able to go from square to round without any intermediary steps, but while I’m still becoming familiar with the lathe I figure that anything which reduces the risk of a catch while turning is worth taking. I marked out the octagons using the same pre-industrial geometry I always do, before planing the corners away with my Clifton No.5. All told, octagonalising 12 legs took only a couple of hours (running at an average of 10 minutes per leg plus layout time). Next is to make a story stick for the leg pattern, and then turn the legs. I’m hoping for three usable stools – I’m realistic that turning 12 perfectly consistent legs might be a big ask for a baby-turner (but who knows, I might get lucky). I have one burgandy leather seat on order from Texas Heritage, and will order more seats (as well as tribolts from Lee Valley for the folding mechanism) once I know how many viable stools I have. In any event, this is going to be a super fun project which will hopefully increase my ability at the lathe, and result in some additional seating for the Apprentice’s guests in August.

Four sets of campaign stool legs ready for the lathe

 

New Additions to the Portfolio

When Gareth was in the ‘shop two weeks ago taking photos of the Saw Cabinet , we also managed to squeeze in a photoshoot of Laurie – the Blackguard Telecaster build which was the focus of the first 6 months of this blog (that feels like a long time ago now).

Those photos can now be found here on the Portfolio section of Over the Wireless. As always, Gareth’s photos are gorgeous, and he helped pull out new angles and a refreshing take on the details.

The Grand Reveal

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on a project which I’ve refrained from writing about on OtW. That project is a wall hanging saw cabinet (daddy has a saw problem, remember?) which will be the subject of a project article for the October 2018 issue of Popular Woodworking. With the build now complete, and the copy, drawings, and process photographs, all submitted to the magazine, I have added the saw cabinet to the Portfolio section of OtW. Click through here to see a selection of the excellent beauty shots of the saw cabinet Gareth took two weeks ago. And if you want to know how to build this cabinet? Stay tuned for the October issue of PopWood!