And...another Chair Class

 This week I had another chair class this time with Mike. Mike had a great first day and got all his spindles split and roughed out, plus his back bows made and bent. He's doing a Sack Back chair and is right on track and open to learning techniques, which makes it easier for me. In this picture, his second day, he is turning on the lathe his first time and did a nice job making a Bamboo leg. He picked up how to move your body along instead of just moving the tool.

 He was getting really nice shavings coming off the lathe. This is a single piece shaving that was a full 24 inches and thats with the curls (it's longer than that if you stretch it out). Shavings like that are a good sign your using the tools correctly.

After Mike had his leg turned it was on to the seat. He started with a rough sawn pine seat about 2 1/8" thick and hand planed it down to 1 7/8" with a Scrub Plane, Jack Plane, and finally a Smoothing Plane.

 Mike was interested in doing his chair in more of a traditional style and picked the brace and bit over a cordless drill. He did pretty good although we had to plug a couple of his leg holes and we'll redrill them tomorrow. It's a little more difficult with the brace and bit due to the fact your having to move one hand to operate it and that little movement can get you out of alignment pretty easy for first timers. Still a great job and day well done.

 With the holes drilled it was on to seat shaping. The Eastern White Pine seat cuts so nicely with hand tools, so there was no use in using the adze to chop his seat, he went right into it with the inshave (scorp).

 Here Mike's using the drawknife to cut the leg relief on the front of the seat (Leg Bevels). He is planning on making more Chairs once he gets back home and I think with a few more under his belt he could easily get the Windsor Curse (obsessed with making them). Once it gets in your blood it's helpless to try and stop.

 Mike's making use of  the spokeshave to round the under side of the seat. I think he's doing a great job and hopefully I don't try and shove to much info down his throat in such a short amount of time. There's alot to making these chairs, it's one thing to know what to do over several years of making them, but to try and cram everything you need to know in just a week's time, is asking a lot. I know Mike is game, I just hope it doesnt overload him to bad.