Popular Woodworking 2000-06 № 115, страница 52

Shaker-style

Chair

If you've ever wanted to try your hand at traditional chairmaking,

here's how you cut the power cord and get started on this hand-hewn classic.

The first thing to say about making chairs is they are hard to do. Chairs need to be strong because they get moved around a lot. There isn't always a lot of wood thickness to make the joints, and if you don't get them right, sooner or later the chair will break or fall apart. Aside from the structural demands, comfortable chairs need to conform to and support the human body in a balanced posture. Having taken care of all this, good chairs should be attractive because they stick out into a room and generally get looked at a lot.

Chairs don't design well on paper, especially post and rung chairs. The critical elements that make a well-balanced chair can't really be understood until you've sat on what you've made. For this reason I usually start my students off by suggesting that they plan on making half a dozen chairs rather than expecting to get everything right the first time. There are curves and bends that I don't even measure; I just know what feels good and where it should

go. This comes only with practice.

I made my first rocking chair about 18 years ago working from measured drawings from the rocking chairs at Mt. Lebanon's Shaker community. I was not at all pleased with the way my first chair sat. So, through a process of trial and error that lasted about four years, I finally got to a point were I was well pleased.

If I haven't scared you off, and you would still like to try your hand at making a good rocking chair, I'll give you my best advice and the necessary information on how to make one of my Shaker-style rocking chairs.

Selecting the Wood

For the necessary strength in a chair, I use hardwoods with a good straight grain. White oak, hickory and sometimes ash. Maple would make a nice chair but it doesn't grow well here in Arkansas. The size of the growth rings make a difference, too. Slow growth wood is weak and brittle, and

by Owen Rein

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Owen Rein has been making chairs professionally in this manner for 15 years and teaches chair making. You can write to him at P.O. Box 1162, Mountain View, AR 72560

10 Popular Woodworking June 2000