Catching Up: The Winter

This summer will be a bit subdued as far as travels go, which is going to be lovely for me after the fall and winter of action. After returning from Purchase, I immediately launched into teaching a 22 person class in the Cabinet Program at North Bennet Street. I spent the better part of January working with the students there.

Here is the chair that we made. It's a scaled up version of my kid's hoopback (which is one of my personal favorites to have around the house). I made this version larger to better serve the students at the school as their bench chair. I think it's very cool that they get to make their own shop furniture. Scaling it up posed the usual challenges of adjusting the rake and splay of the legs so that the chair doesn't take up too much floor space, which is especially important in the tight spaces of the school.

As the class was winding down, I went down to Colonial Williamsburg to present, along with the outstanding Don Williams and the folks from the Cabinet and Jointers shop, on chairs...of course.

 The auditorium at the museum is first class with two cameras and projection to really get up close. Here Kaare is giving me a "hand" pumping the treadle lathe. Frankly, it was a bit much for me to turn, pump and talk! I got lots of help after wearing out Kaare from the jointers apprentices.

photo by Tom McKenna

For the presentation, I thought it would be fun to work out a new continuous arm and Kaare Loftheim, master cabinetmaker, agreed. Here is the chair that I made, based on a few photos in books and online. As usual, I learned some fun things about design and got to finally turn some Rhode Island balusters!

 Here is the complete chair and the one that I demonstrated

 The seat shape and the legs were a lot of fun.

 Plus I took a little more time with the distressing, placing a thin coat of shellac inbetween the undercoat and top coat of dark green. I was very pleased with the results.

 The swelling on the lower section gives ample material for the joinery, I'm not sure how much that played into the design thinking at the time, but it was apparent to me. The lower portion takes on much more of an important role in the look of the leg, which gives a nice balance. The image below is not good for proportions because of my phone lens, but you get the idea.

It was a great trip and an honor to be invited. If you ever get the chance to attend, I highly recommend it.
And here is your Georgie update! She is thriving and turning out to be the easiest dog I've ever had. Playful and loving but extremely calm on her own. She is now acclimated to all the shop noises and all my hustling about. When it gets to be too much, she just retires to her crate for a nap! We are still working on new experiences. The first time she saw the television she freaked, but now she sits calmly while it's on, I don't think that she had ever heard a voice come from a box.

I know it's gratuitous, but I"m smitten

Lil would approve of her technique

The truck is becoming a safe space, this is their first ride together

Nice to Meet You

Since I moved to Sterling, Massachusetts, I've been swamped with projects and traveling and had little time to get to know my community or let them know me. That changed when I talked to Dave Gibbs at the Sterling Historical Society about combining our efforts and interests. The Society has a lovely collection of Windsors that were made here in town as well as a barn full of the old tools from its workshops. The first floor of the barn is relatively empty, and I thought it would be a great location to host some 6 person classes. So, next summer, I hope to schedule three classes there, but I'll post more on that once we work out the details.
To help introduce me to the community, the Sterling Historical Society hosted a demonstration at the local American Legion post and Ross Jones of Harvard Video Productions filmed it for us. Here is the video of the demonstration.
If it doesn't appear on your screen, click here to go to the original site.



As you can see, I am elated to be starting this project. I think 6 is a great number of students for a class. Plenty enough for a group energy and atmosphere but few enough for lots of personal attention.

And if I got you interested in my talk with Dudley Hershbach, here is a great interview with him that I found every bit as engaging as sitting next to him on the plane.



and once again, the link if you don't see the video here.

The Baluster

One of the great perks of our new place in Massachusetts (besides the lower taxes) is the high speed internet. Uploading from this location is a breeze compared to our more rural locale in NY. Hopefully this will bring forth a new golden age of blog posting, well... maybe not, but there will be more pictures!

 

This is of course the baluster patterns that I spoke of. I like to turn the lower taper on the legs so that it straightens to a near cylinder shape at the bottom, that way when I trim the legs, the foot diameter doesn't widen too much.

Good luck!

Tradition

There are lots of traditions in this world, some better left behind and some that I aspire to carry on. I've worked in plenty of shops where information was doled out as needed and even then with a jaundiced eye. I'm not so sure what there was to fear, but it never sat right with me.

The baluster turning has been around for hundreds of year, and no one turner gets to claim it as wholly their own, therefore, I believe that it belongs to all of us. The baluster that I turn is influenced by my favorite parts of Dave Sawyer and Curtis Buchanan's turnings with a bit of my own flavor thrown in. Dave has a lovely sense of the flow that a baluster should have and the intense thicks and thins of Curtis' leg are challenging to turn and add a visual spring to the chair.

But the tradition that I'm talking about is not about turning a leg, it's sharing the information. It's a much happier world to live in, period.

By visiting www.petergalbertchairmaker.com/balusterpattern.html , you'll open a page on my web site with the full sized patterns. Just hit print and the patterns for my leg and armpost will print on 4 pages that can be physically cut and matched to make one pattern with the leg on one side and the post on the other.

Then go make some shavings and the next time someone asks you for some hard earned piece of information, remember, you're part of a tradition.