Managing Catastrophe

During a half century in the shop, I’ve taught myself to use steam to inflate bumps on furniture parts, that even deep gashes in the wood can be removed with some clever work with a hand plane or a rasp and sandpaper, how to lengthen mitered parts with a hand plane (yes, it can be done), to use clamps to seat a set of dovetails so there are no gaps around the pins and tails. But most important I learned that sometimes a part or even an entire piece must be destroyed because a mistake has forced me into a corner where there are no good solutions. That’s a tough lesson, but one essential for anyone who wishes to ensure that only good work leaves his/her shop. But in the case of this chair, there were deadlines I had to meet: a customer awaiting delivery on the chair and a magazine awaiting delivery on a story about the making of the chair. This took away the nuclear option and forced me to focus on how this chair might be saved, rather than on how it might be replaced.

I couldn’t plug the holes and rebore them because the plugs in the incorrect mortises would be flashing neon noticed by anyone who saw the chair. I then wondered if I could I raise the top of the front post in some way? I imagined how various bits of wood could be combined to create that extra 3/4” in height. It would be possible but not without a high level of clunkiness. So I looked at the chair some more, and over the course of an hour of alternately sitting and pacing, I came to realize there was only one real option that didn’t involve throwing the chair onto a burn pile. I had to create a drop in the arms that lowered the back ends 3/4” before continuing on the level to the front post.

Resolution

I believe that building by eye and my approach to shop problems are two sides of the same coin. Neither relies on any exterior instrument or text or measured drawing. Both rely solely on the educated judgment of the maker. Are the posts correctly aligned? Does the little fillip at the ends of the arms conform to the chair’s aesthetics? In both instances, I relied on what my experienced gut told me.

But I know that not every woodworker is comfortable relying on his/her uncorroborated judgment to such an extent. Like Joe Graham, I’ve had many students in my chairmaking classes who balk at the idea, preferring squares and rules and straightedges, and I would never say that my approach is the only approach or the best approach. I just know that it works for me, probably a result of a personality that is, in general, not too comfortable with rules and regulations.

31 After reassembling the arm blank with masking tape, I begin to make cuts that will define the two edges of this arm.

30 The arms must be cut in two adjacent planes. In this photo, I’m cutting the top and bottom planes.

The long diagonal stick is the back post story stick, and you can still see the incorrect placement of the arm mortise above the corrected placement.