Popular Woodworking 2004-11 № 144, страница 48

enjoyed the spotlight thanks to these classes, the Welsh stick chair remains a bit obscure. There are fewer places to take classes in building this chair. Don Weber of Paint Lick, Ky., teaches this form regularly. And Drew Lang-sner's school, Country Workshops in Marshall, N.C., also regularly offers classes. So the student who wants to make this more primitive and aggressive form of chair, needs to do a bit more searching. After talking to dozens of chair-making students, my search lead me to Fleming.

Meet David Fleming

Though Fleming taught high school for 20 years before becoming a professional chairmaker, working with wood has always been a part of his life. When he was 6 years old he carried a jack knife and whittled constantly. In his 20s, Fleming began making snowshoes and birch bark canoes - he and Sandy camp even in the winter. As a teacher, Fleming had summers off and spent the time learning green wood crafts from

Two examples of Fleming's chairs: a ladderback (left) in ash with a rush seat. And his "Buttermilk Creek Windsor," a chair of his own design in elm, ash and mahogany.

Algonquin Indians.

"With building canoes and snowshoes, a lot of the skills are the same with ladderback and Windsor chairmaking," he says. "You find the right tree, split it and work it with a drawknife and crooked knife."

One day when he was in a small bookstore he picked up a copy of John D. Alexander's landmark book, "Make a Chair from a Tree" (Pub Group West). And so, like thousands of other people who bought that book, Fleming began making ladderback chairs. A second event then launched him into abandoning teaching for chairmaking. A local doctor stopped by his shop one day, saw Fleming's chairs and ordered 10.

"The high school teaching was fine," he says. "But I needed a change. I thought I'd try something else."

So he started building chairs on the side and demonstrating at craft shows. About 1988 he purchased "Make a Windsor Chair With Michael Dunbar" (Pub Group West), a book that

Here I'm shaping the crest rail before steam-bending. The crest began as chunk of ash, but after less than an hour of work it was a perfectly flat piece of wood with two straight edges.

is now difficult to find, and Fleming added Windsors to his repertoire. Business was so good by 1991 that Fleming finally bid the high school a "fond farewell" and became a full-time professional.

These days Fleming builds as many as four chairs a week - his business is about 40 percent lad-derbacks and 60 percent Windsor-

style chairs, including the Welsh stick. He builds them and Sandy finishes them.

Their 19th century home is filled with Fleming's work, which students experience first-hand as they gather around the wood-burning stove each day to eat a rib-sticking lunch that Sandy has prepared. I spent the week sitting in one of Fleming's Windsor chairs. Its comfortable contours (and my muscle fatigue) made it a challenge to stand up and begin the afternoon work. When the mood strike s him at the end of the meal, Fleming will pick up his guitar and sing a few jazzy songs.

Working Like a Chairmaker

After a couple days of this routine you fall into Fleming's daily rhythm. In fact, despite the fact that the work is strenuous, I've never felt as relaxed as I did during my five days in Cobden. Part of that is the nature of the work (no noisy machines) and part of it is Fleming's unbreakable calm.

After my disaster with the seat, the hours and days began to fly by. Though I had done turning on only one previous occasion, Flem

46

Popular Woodworking November 2004