Green wood working

[Jacob s white]

I am making a Greenwood chair and was wondering if anyone had any tips or tricks

[Warren Mickley]

I am not sure what kind of chair you are making, but one thing I like to do is turn green parts a little oversize then let them dry a bit before finish turning. Although it is easier to turn green wood, it could warp a bit as it dries. Also you can get a finer finish from the tools on dryer wood than sopping wood.

I went to a Peter Follansbee demonstration on making oak chests. He would rive the material wet, let it dry a bit before planing to size, and then some more drying before carving. So it was half dried or so when carving.

[John Keeton]

If you haven’t already, I would suggest perusing this site as a beginning - http://www.greenwoodworking.com/

I have turned legs and stretchers for the Windsor chairs I build from dry and wet maple. Wet wood is much nicer to turn and I turn to finish and spray the detailed spooling with shellac to prevent checking. I let them dry for 24-48 hours and then sand them on the lathe and reseal the exposed end grain spooling with shellac. I do leave the tenons oversized and not tapered. It is a simple matter to remount them on the lathe and taper the tenons after they have been super dried by placing just the tenons thru holes in my kiln.

The turned pieces do warp and distort some, but it is not noticeable in the finished chair. The important thing is for the tenons to be true.

[Jacob s white]

I’m not turning any parts

[David Bassett]

Lots of resources on the web. It's come up here, so search. (Using an external search engine with "site:sawmillcreek.org", without the quotes, as a search term will limit the results to threads here.)

One resource you may have overlooked is the various Lost Art Press books, and supporting blog posts, on green woodworking. They just reissued an update of Drew Langsner's classic "Country Woodcraft". They have several Welsh stick chair books starting with a reprint of John Brown's book, a bio of John Brown, and a third party book they sell on Welsh chair designs. They have Peter Galbert's "Chairmaker's Notebook" and Jennie Alexander & Peter Follansbee's "Make a Joint Stool from a Tree". They also have Peter Follansbee working on finishing the 3rd edition of Jennie Alexander's "Make a Chair from a Tree", they say it might be ready this spring.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Some one else here (Prashun Patel I think) a few months back recommended Curtis Buchanan you tubes on his build of what he calls the democratic chair. He names the chair based on his goal that it should be able to be built by a majority of people who have a relatively simple tool kit. He shapes his parts with draw knives, axes, and spoke shaves. Check it out. Pretty inspiring stuff

[John Keeton]

Joe’s suggestion is a good one! In fact, Curtis and Elia Bizzarri are doing virtual classes right now on building the Democratic chair and will be doing another class on “Velda’s chair” starting sometime in March. Here is Elia’s blog post - http://handtoolwoodworking.com/chairmaking-blog/.

[John Keeton]

Jacob, I reviewed some of your recent posts and you are an adventurous woodworker - starting a carved chest build, workbench and a chair. You are going to be busy!!

[Jacob s white]

Well I’ll make the chair and workbench relatively soon but the chest probably within the next year