Popular Woodworking 2003-10 № 136, страница 86

Great Woodshops

Back-roads Bodger

Don Weber keeps traditional chairmaking alive in an old Kentucky general store.

The birth of one of Don Weber's Welsh stick chairs begins not in a lumberyard,

but in the bohemian Welshman's small side

yard that's riddled with logs and rough shavings in the tiny town of Paint Lick, Ky.

Weber, who's a bodger (a 19th century term for a specific kind of British chairmak-er), carefully places two wedges on the end of a log and then comes crashing down on them with an iron-bound mallet called a beetle. The log gently splits in two. He then rives the wood into billets with a tool called a froe. Using a side ax, he furiously dresses the wood, sending chips flying.

Then the pieces of oak (what will become the Welsh stick chair's leg stock, stretcher stock and arm material) are taken into the machine room where they begin their journey through the shop.

From Mendocino to Paint Lick

Weber was born in New York, raised in Wales (where he apprenticed as a joiner) and lived in California for 20 years before moving to Paint Lick. His first woodshop in Mendocino, Calif., was "a tiny place alongside a creek." Eventually the bodger moved his shop to higher ground, working under what's referred to in Britain as a "bender" - an outdoor canvas structure. Electricity was unnecessary.

While living in California, he worked, researched and taught traditional woodworking. His activities required him to travel to Appalachia - areas such as eastern Tennessee and Kentucky - where, as Weber explains, traditional crafts have a pure, direct connection to the crafts of the British Isles in the 1700s. (Think Eliot Wigginton's "The Foxfire Book" series - 11 books that include interviews with older Appalachian

residents about everything from bear hunting and home remedies to ghost stories and chairmaking. The popular series prompted the creation of the The Foxfire Fund Inc., a nonprofit educational and literary organization supporting traditional crafts and skills. Check out foxfire.org.)

In October 1998, Weber made a trip to teach with the Kentucky Arts Council. While

by Kara Gebhart

Comments or questions? Contact Kara at 513-5312690 ext. 1348 or kara.gebhart@fwpubs.com.

there, he had some time to drive around the Kentucky countryside. He slowed down when he saw a sign that said "Paint Lick."

Once big enough to support five general stores, Paint Lick (an old railroad stop about 40 miles south of Lexington) used to be a busy place. Today the main street is lined with a few antiquated buildings and the old-timers reminisce about the day wild animals ran loose after a circus train wrecked. There's still a post office, an auto-repair shop and a restaurant where almost everyone smokes -including the cooks.

86

Popular Woodworking October 2003