The chair is done. Time to build a chair.

So the prototype is done. It sits ok, but it has issues. It's a little prone to tipping over now that the back legs are trimmed to a good length. The seat angle is comfortable, and encourages the sitter to slump comfortably in the chair... only it's not so comfortable to slump in. Originally, the back of the chair was supposed to offer back support, but I mounted it too high, and couldn't find a reasonable way to add spindles or re-mount the back. I'll figure something out at some point, but for now, I've already learned a lot about chair design that's going to go into the next chair, so the mindset right now is that I'm not going to put too much more effort into something that has already consumed so much. There's little to be gained (Aside form a more comfortable chair) from trying to get much more out of this iteration. The next version will be better.

I've pulled out an 8' beam of Ash that was in the racks, and the debate now is, do I buy more lumber for a full wooden seat, or do I buy webbing, and go for an upholstered version?

Learning, always learning...

This chair prototype thing has been very educational. That is, I'm finding new mistakes every day.

Yesterday, I did a lot more shaping, and I trimmed the back legs. I trimmed at a pretty steep angle, taking something like 4" off of the legs, and a few things became immediately apparent.

-The seat angle was VERY comfortable. That said, I do still need to resolve the back support issue. The seat board does a great job of scooping a person off of their feet, but there is a very pronounced (and well enunciated) need to have something to finish the scooping job at the back end of the chair... and preferably in a way that is as comfortable as the rest of the chair.

-The seat is too short, as the back legs contact the floor at a point that is forward enough to render a very tippy feeling chair. Great if it's a rocking chair. But not entirely comfortable, since it's not.

-The back legs aren't curved enough, or aren't curved in the right direction. They curve downward, and meet the floor at something close to a 90 degree angle, instead of curving/canting back, and adding more stability.

-The front legs are now at a very rakish angle. This may be normal, I'm not sure, but it does look a little weird.


I will say that the whole exercise has been great, and it's got me thinking about other designs, and how else I would make the chair. But it also has me thinking that, long-term, I'm going to have to incorporate wood-bending into my designs, so once again, the onus is upon me to go looking for logs. Sighhhhh...

Vein slapping junkie

So, I've been using the bench I built last year for a while now. It's great, I love it.

But, my recent foray into chairs, and chair shaping has gotten me thinking again. You see, I've been sitting on yet another vise for a while, that I've been wanting to use, but hadn't gotten around to using yet. I've got an Emmert pattern-maker's vise. In essence, these are some of the most versatile vises known to man, and they can swivel in several different directions. In short, they're perfect for weirdly shaped parts, such as those that I'm making now. And I've found myself thinking about it while shaping these parts.

Installing one of these monsters is a trial in and of itself. That's one reason I'd put it off. And they're incredibly heavy, and have been known to warp 2" thick bench tops over time. That's why I haven't wanted to mount it to the bench I have now. I've been thinking about mounting it to the Sjoberg that I've been keeping in the machine room, maybe, and swapping benches after that. But I haven't gone through with that yet.

Then I was bouncing my merry way around the web, and was reminded of yet another vise I'd had my eye on for a while... (http://www.khalafoud.com/media/benchcraftedtailvise.wmv) and had to pull myself out of my reverie. I think it's quite possible that I have a woodworking tool problem.

"Hi, I'm James, and I'm a tool junkie..."

Shaping, scraping, rasping, filing...

Shaping this chair so far has been fun, frustrating, illuminating, educational, and so on.  It's a part time gig, while I look for a new day job, so it's slower going than it normally would be.

I've spent a lot of time working things over with a rasp, which is pretty slow going. I've conceded to myself that this chair is going to take a long damn time. And I'm diligently taking notes as things occur to me, so that next time, I can have a lot more of this work done before any of it gets glued together. There are faster ways to get that work accomplished, but most of the methods I'm familiar with apply to individual parts, not assembled chairs. The moral of the story is that you have to do things the wrong way sometimes to learn how to do them the right way.

On a less fortunate note, as the chair is built right now, it's just not going to be comfortable. The back is set too high to be supportive, and what I noticed when I tried it out is that I end up slumping into the open space underneath the back... which just doesn't make for a good time. So, I'm torn right now. Any fix that I put in place will involve cutting and re-working a partially shaped piece. So, some work is going to have to get edited out... that much is clear. But how much editing, and for what gain, is the real question.

I could saw the back out of the chair, move it down to a more comfortable location, and hope that it'll be a structurally sound modification. After that, I'd have to trim the tops of the legs down some. But I also think the top part of the legs isn't curved back far enough. So even moving the back part downward may not actually solve anything.

Style-wise, I think the legs come up too sharply. If the top section curved back a bit more, I think it would make for a more comfortable chair. But I also think it would help make the arm joint (where the arm meets the back leg) look a little more graceful, if they came together in a way that didn't remind me of someone hunching their shoulders.

I could also work on scabbing in some spindles, to try to add back support underneath the back as it is now, without chopping anything out. I'm not 100% sold on this idea either, though.

Slow, steady progress

The Maloof inspired chair is basically assembled, but there's going to be a lot of shaping to do.

The process so far has inspired a lot of note-taking, and most of it reads the same. "Did this today. Need to do it differently next time." The recipe has been pretty simple: Add one poorly thought out solution to a dumb mistake, and top off with an awkward fix. Repeat as necessary. None of it is really brain surgery, but all of it is pretty necessary, really. I have to work through all of the obvious mistakes, so I can streamline the process for next time. Then I get to tackle the really insidious, not-so obvious mistakes.

BUT, the note-taking has been pretty productive, I have a much clearer idea of what the process will look like next time, which is very helpful. And I think it's going to lead to a lot of design evolutions as I play with new ideas. Once the chair is done, I'll be able to write up a procedure for the next one, including all of the proposed changes, which will hopefully make the next build a lot smoother.

The other problem I've had so far is that I really under-shaped things before gluing up. It's the first version, and that's one good reason, but the truth is, I got ahead of myself with the glue-up. I could have done a simple dry-fit, marked things to be pared away on the band saw, and glued everything up when it was a lot closer to the desired final shape. But, I didn't. I wanted to see how the joinery worked, and have an assembled chair that I could sit in. All things considered, it's not the end of the world. But it is going to slow me down a bit, because I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail through the rest of the work I have to do; chiseling, rasping, filing, and scraping, followed by a crapload of sanding. It's proving to be a good exercise in sculpting, but it's also one I'd like to avoid when I start working with maple, which will be a lot harder to shape than poplar. So, next time, I'll spend a lot more time getting the shape right before I put it together.

Then, after all the sanding, I get to try to put a decent finish on the finished product... which means it'll probably be paint of some kind. For the un-initiated, poplar's not so good at presenting smooth surfaces, so a varnish will probably look horrible. Paint is just thick enough that I might be able to make it work. That, or a skim coat of bondo, and a some auto body touch up paint. Maybe a little bit of metal flake thrown in for good measure... or maybe a flame job...

Chairs

So, as I mentioned in the last post, I'm working on something again.

I needed something to do, and I sat at my bench for a while, trying to figure out just what kind of work I really wanted to be doing. If the shop is going to be a side enterprise, I need a regular product to sell. I thought about it some more, and realized that the two projects I was most excited about getting into, on a production level, were chair projects.

One project is a design by Brian Boggs. He told us in class that he didn't mind if we re-produced the work we did in class and sold it, but he didn't want us knocking off the designs he makes in his own shop. So, once I make a few of them, for myself or for friends, I'll start playing with the design, and work out something new that I'll enjoy making, and see if it sells.

For now, I'm working on a chair that's roughly based on chairs that were made by Sam Maloof. I've seen other people selling rockers and other chairs that were clearly related to Maloof's body of work being sold at craft fairs. But it's not really surprising, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. He made his methods absolutely transparent for everyone to see, and use. He wrote articles, books, and even did consented to have video taken of him, at work in his shop, doing some of the things he's known for doing. His leg joints in particular were a hallmark of his work, and they're something he covered thoroughly in the video. His logic, as he explained it, was that he wanted the information out there, so that others could learn from his mistakes, and not have to waste as much time as he did learning what he knows.

I plan on approaching this in the same spirit as I described with regard to the Boggs chairs. I don't plan on being a knock-off artist. But I do need a point of departure, and Sam Maloof's chairs were stunningly beautiful. If I can do justice to the spirit of his designs, I think that's a pretty good point to jump from.

The chair I'm currently building is made out of Poplar, because it's a prototype, and I'm learning all of this the hard way. Cut, patch, cut, re-cut, and so forth. It's not going to be the straightest route. But, and this is something new, I've been taking the time for the past few nights, to sit down, have a drink, and write down everything I'd done that day, the mistakes I made, and the things I'd thought of along the way. It's the way I should have been doing things, starting way back.

At the moment, I've gotten the leg joints as close to finished as they're going to get. I made a few mistakes while figuring them out, but I managed to get them right, I think. And I understand enough about how they work that the next time will go a lot more smoothly. I also have the seat glued up, and ready to be ripped apart again. The rough shape is there, but the seat as a whole is entirely too wide, I think. I still have joinery to cut for the arms, and shaping to do. And I need to mount a back to the legs, which will be interesting, given that I went ahead and shaped the back legs without giving thought to mating surfaces. So, I'll have to work around that.

In short, this project kinda reminds me of the stool I got half-built a while back. I still need to revisit that project, but one thing at a time... For now, I'm moving forward, making mistakes, learning from them, and writing everything down, so I can put the lessons to use next time around. I think that's a pretty good analogy for everything that's going on right now, whether it's me trying to balance work and shop time, or trying to learn how to build chairs, or learning to prototype and set up a production line.

One parting thought. I talked a lot to Brian Boggs when I took a class from him 2 years and more ago. It was a whirlwind class, but I managed to catch him for a moment during lunch, to explain that I was about to set up a brand new shop of my very own. He said that chairs were a great way to get going. The reason, he said, was that if you can make $10,000 on chairs, that's a lot of chairs... and a lot of your work that's out in the world, making your reputation. On the other hand, $10,000 worth of case pieces is maybe 2 or 3 pieces. And they don't get used as much as chairs would.

One more reason that chairs are so good, and this is something that was implied by the nature of the class that Brian was teaching, they lend themselves to being made in batches. And once you've made one, the patterns and the process have already been made to help make more. The design process doesn't have to be repeated.

So, I'm pretty happy for now. I still have a lot to figure out, but I'm getting there.

Back in the Saddle Again...

Ugh, again. What a month, again.

So, on Septembe 2, Ariel started nursing school again. And, I got laid off from the composites job.

There wasn't much of a story to the whole thing. The custom composite shop, where I was working, is an offshoot of a boat building shop. The boat building industry is in the crapper, so my guess is that the owners are looking for a new way to make a living, and they're using the boat shop to fund the new shop until it gets off the ground. But on the day they laid me off, they were working on the last boat that they had on order, so money's drying up. Full timers were already taking time off, and there was a general round of layoffs. I was told that I'm a smart guy, very skilled, they like having me around, and when things pick up, they'd love to have me back. But for now, I don't have a job there anymore. I'm in the process of looking for something new in another field of manufacturing, but we'll see what shakes out. If I can get a decent job somewhere, I'll pretty much take it.

After 9/2/9, I spent a week or so moving the rest of our stuff into the new apartment, and getting it settled. Or more so, anyway, we're still getting things settled. And after that, I started job hunting. I'm still looking for work, but I figured it was high time I went back and faced the shop.

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My first night back in the shop was about a week and a half ago, give or take. I didn't have any outstanding projects on deck. I'm still waiting to hear back about the reclaimed lumber job, but things are hectic all over, so I still have faith that I'll hear from him. And, basically, I felt bummed out, just being in there. And I couldn't put my finger on why, for a day or two.

Basically, I felt like I'd abandoned woodworking for composites. Even though the woodworking thing is such an ingrained part of who I am, I cut it off, for a month and a half, while I was working the new job, and packing the old apartment. I'd been more committed to the composite shop than I'd intended to be, I think. So going back to the shop felt like returning to a woman I'd been cheating on, in a way, after the new affair had come undone. I was embarrassed, ashamed, madder about being laid off than I'd realized, and I really didn't feel comfortable in the shop space. I looked around, and felt almost like the whole thing had been a waste of time, despite knowing that it wasn't.

At the end of the day, it's hard sometimes, to do the things you love. And sometimes it means doing something else for a while. It's hard to remember that, sometimes.

Anyway, I've been in the shop for a few days now, part-time. I'm still job-hunting, but now that the move is over, and Ariel is back in school, I have time in the evenings again, and I'll have time, I hope, on the weekends, to go in and get things done.

The first step, at this point, is to get my woodworking to be self-sustaining, even if it's not really paying enough to sustain the rest of my life. Basically, it's a part-time small business, for the sole purpose of keeping it going. And we'll see where it goes from there.

Sorry for not posting for so long. It's not that things haven't been happening, but I consider this to be my woodworking blog, primarily. And now that I'm actually working on something again, I'll have more to write about in here.