Forest To Furniture 2015: Joint Stools.

I had the good fortune to spend last Sunday out, enjoying excellent weather, making wood shavings, chips, chunks, and dust with a couple good friends. It was a similar demo we did together last year for the Castlerock Museum of Arms and Armor and they asked us to make it a yearly adventure!

This year we organized our efforts a bit and all worked on different parts of the same project, A joint stool. Tom Latane had several he'd built in classes with Jennie Alexander many years ago and we had the great book by Alexander and Follansbee from Lost Art Press to reference throughout the day.

Tom took up riving, hewing, and planing oak into planks and legs. Making them ready to pass off for the joinery.

 I spent the day swinging a mallet and chopping mortises (something I'm much faster at when I'm not stopping to talk with visitors about the process) I also demoed making pins and drawbore joints. I never did get around to cutting a tenon.

Paul Nyborg is an up and coming blacksmith on the scene, (he made the holdfast I'm using in the pic above!) When I first met him he was hauling around pieces to a nearly finished wainscot chair. Imagine starting to learn 16th - 17th century furniture and carving by starting with a wainscot chair. Ambitious yes but cooler yet, he was pulling it off.

He used the afternoon to demo the refinements to the joint stool. Carving and making mouldings with scratch stocks. I love how he works off a low bench like Alexander shows in "Make A Chair From A Tree".

The museum has asked us to make this a yearly show and it's so fun to do how could we say no. My own involvement with the museum will be increasing in the future as well, but more on that to come.

Next year we're thinking of a joined chest. That seems ambitious as well, but a satisfying ambition as one is very high on my bucket list.

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf