Classes

Gragg Chair Workshop 4

Fitting and shaping the cross-chair elements is at the heart of turning this pile of parts into a structural construct capable of supporting a sitting body.  This takes a lot of time.

As the cross-chair structural elements were added and shaped it was time to move on to the work of shaping and thinning the continuous seat/back slats.  My experience has been that these must be bent full thickness over the whole length, then the section beginning with and above the rear seat rail must be thinned by hand, usually with spokeshaves or drawknives to the point where they are appropriately springy.   Concurrent with this step is cutting the dado troughs for the slats in the rear seat rail and there is a fair bit of back and forth getting them to fit properly and be properly springy so that it can all go together in the end.

Since one of the students had very limited experience with steam bending I loaded up the steam box with chair parts and went through the entire process with him so that he could get the “feel” of how each of the parts was cooked and formed.