Battles With Bears
Some days you eat the bear…
And some days the bear eats you.
As I dive ever deeper into producing Gragg chairs, currently two on commission and another for myself with hopes of including this item in The Barn Store in the coming months/years (and even entertaining thoughts about offering a Make A Gragg Chair workshop as soon as the summer/autumn of 2020; first, I have to make one from start to finish in a week myself), I realize all the more how close Gragg was coming to the limits of what can be accomplished with wood as the raw material. Given the extremity of the bends involved, including the main serpentine element with two 90-degree four-inch-radius bends within a foot of each other and a180-degree four-inch-radius bend for the arms, working out the routine is a critical process.
I recall the first time I tried this almost a decade ago on the original Gragg repro prototype, in front of my Smithsonian colleagues no less, I broke every single piece of the ash I took from our prized lumber inventory in the conservation studio. Every. Single. Piece. Not to mention breaking several of the bending form elements which had been woefully under-built. It was not my proudest moment of professional accomplishment but drove me on to get it right.
Even now I test the boundaries, trying riven and sawn kiln-dried oak (at the bottom of the pile in the truck), trying ancient/recycled but possibly air dried oak salvaged from a derelict weaving loom,
trying oak I harvested several years ago but have kept from seasoning fully, first cross-stacked outside and now residing in the basement/first floor of the barn,
and finally using oak I harvested this year. Through it all my batting average kept improving.
I’ve heard my friend Bruce Hoadley tell the story of a small manufacturer who was plagued with broken elements resulting from very tight bends after steaming. The punch line was that after going to watch the definitive practitioner for making the identical items, the manufacturer said with a smile something to the effect of, “He breaks most of them too!”
I encountered the same thing with the Gragg chair elements. Some stock bends like taffy, some breaks like crystal. I am moving more toward the former than the latter, but it is exasperating all the same. At least the failures make good kindling.
Yesterday afternoon my success rate was 92% with only a single stick making it into the failure pile. By observing the character of the pieces being bent, the stresses of the bending itself combined with the addition of bending straps, this is an outcome I can live with.
Still, the pile of kindling grows, just not as fast as in the past.
I am definitely gaining ground on the bears.
You didn’t mention it but did you decrease the thickness of the pieces being bent? Also would it be feasible to do the bending in groups, say half and half and then put those together?
Ralph
As to the first question, the pieces are as thin as I can get them and still have a little meat to finish them by hand after fabrication is complete-ish.
As to the second question, no, laminating thinner pieces would not be the objective I am aiming for. Perhaps at some point when I am playing with/re-interpreting the form. For now I am trying to mimic Gragg as closely as I can derive his working process, with the exception of one area of joinery where I have improved on his methods.
I probably was a bit too negative in part of the post. As I mentioned, my latest bending session had a success rate of over 90% and I am happy with that. I was just trying to reflect on the route that got me to this point. In the near future I will post a blog detailing my exact protocol.
Try fresh green white oak. Ash in any condition seems accommodating. Timing under steam is also critical. Too short, and too long will ruin the results. A west coast kayak builder has done extensive tests in bending wood.
Hi Bruce
All your points ring true, although I have had less luck with ash than I expected. I have some more in stock to try but have not got there yet. I actually find red oak more congenial than white oak. I guess the point of the post was to recount the journey to the point where I have gone from 100% failure to almost 100% success in the bending sessions. Soon I will revisit the details of my regimen.
Hah! When you are always successful, what will your students think if they are not? You could plant a flawed piece and “crack” their attention, making failure acceptable in the learning process.
I can see the attraction of the Gragg chair. It grabbed me the first time I saw you post it.
Perhaps I should simply save some of the failures and hang them on the wall instead of burning them in the wood stove. It would make for an interesting didactic to have successful and unsuccessful pieces side-by-side.
I know it’s not “the old way”, but perhaps this would improve your success rate:
http://www.puretimber.com
That’s why the Seward House in Auburn, NY has bars on the basement windows. To keep the bears out.