Popular Woodworking 2004-11 № 144, страница 47

We take a break from the spindles and sit in Fleming's chairs at the front of the shop. There are a lot of different historical examples of chairs in his shop and home, and Fleming explains the subtle differences in each and helps us decide how our chair is going to look when we're done.

One of the advantages of Fleming's classes is he takes only a handful of students at a time, usually just two or three, sometimes four. The small class size allows each student to work on a slightly different style of chair and make changes to the legs, arms or crest rail and still keep things manageable. In any given month, Fleming will build chairs for three weeks and spend a week teaching his "apprentices."

"No one does a cookie-cutter copy of a chair here," he says. "It's like blues or jazz - it's different every time you do it."

Fleming's students come from all walks of life. Some are experienced woodworkers, but many have very little (if any) shop experience. Either way, Fleming makes

sure that each student leaves with a chair that he or she built.

The other reason that Fleming's class is unusual is he is eager to teach students to build the Welsh stick chair, the genetic ancestor of the subtle and supple Windsor chair we're all familiar with. Windsor chairmaking is enjoying a remarkable renaissance in the United States thanks to Michael Dunbar and The Windsor Institute in Hampton, N.H. Dunbar has taught more than 6,500 students to build Windsor chairs, including many new woodworkers. And a surprising number of his students have opened their own chairmaking shops or begun teaching the craft themselves.

Dunbar's influence has even spread to the tool-making world. When he began teaching in 1980, it was difficult to find traditional chairmaking tools for sale, even in antique stores. But now there's an entire cottage industry that revolves around the craft. Plus major manufacturers are starting to take notice, too.

And while the Windsor has

Using a maul and an axe, Fleming shows how to split the ash log into the square lengths that will become our spindles, crest rail and legs. With the wood still wet, it's surprisingly easy to work.

ABOUT WELSH STICK CHAIRS

The Welsh stick chair is an uncommon form to the American eye. While it shares some of the features of the classic Windsor, it is in many ways less refined. Instead of elegant turned legs, Welsh stick chairs typically have octagonal or roundish hand-shaped legs. Many Welsh stick chairs also lack stretchers between the legs and were even occasionally made with three legs (which was better for dirt floors).

The seat, bow, spindles and crest are all similarly less refined than what you'll find on a typical bow-back or sack-back Windsor. Despite their humble origins, I have always had a fondness for these chairs. While the Windsor chair has an elegance and delicateness like a swan, the Welsh stick chair has an appealing aggressive demeanor - like a large cat that is poised to pounce.

Relatively little is known about individual chairs or their makers because they were peas

ants' chairs, made in a village by a carpenter, wheel-wright or coffin-maker. In fact, the form might be even more obscure if it weren't for the work of one modern chairmaker, John Brown. Brown began building chairs in Wales after losing his job as a builder of wooden boats to the modern business of building plastic hulls.

Brown began building Welsh chairs, selling them and researching what little history exists of this folk craft. He came to the United States and introduced the form to a few influential chairmakers. He began writing a column in the British magazine Good Woodworking that was titled "The Anarchist Woodworker." His 1990 book "Welsh Stick Chairs" (Lyons and Burford Publishers) is on the shelves of most well-read chairmakers.

With this book and Drew Langsner's essential work, "The Chairmaker's Workshop" (Lark), most woodworkers at home can puzzle

out how to build a Welsh stick chair. Or, of course, you can take a class. Modern versions of Welsh stick chairs are much more refined than the originals. Few Welsh stick chairs have saddled seats or steam-bent crests or shaped arms. Most are very straight and quite severe.

Brown's book contains dozens of photos and line drawings of Welsh stick chairs, plus a short history of the region and how it influenced the chairmaking there. And then there are 40 pages that show how Brown makes his "cardigan" chair entirely by hand and usually with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Perhaps the most alarming fact about Welsh stick chairs, according to Brown, is how many of them have been lost. Until recently the chairs were more valuable as firewood. And for every existing one today, there are probably 100 ones that have rotted or been burned or simply thrown away. — CS

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