Thread: Comb Back Windsor Chair

Originally Posted by JDarvall

...Personally I think my dislike for making timbers look like others, comes from the critizim that windsor chairs made here aren't the real thing because , uno,….. 'they aren't even using the right timber'. …not using beech, or elm, or white oak.....

I'm with you 110% on that, Jake. Indeed, we have plenty of excellent woods to choose from, I've just settled on a couple that suit, that I can easily get my hands on. The northern hemisphere has far fewer species of suitable woods, at least in the areas where these sorts of chairs originated, but what they do have is plenty good enough - easy to turn, takes fine detail & hs sufficient strength. Whether our woods are better or worse than European equivalents, is a debate that would be hard to sustain, because any wood can be excellent for one property, less good in another. My take would be that we have a good number of potential contenders for legs & spindles. One thing that does go against many woods that would otherwise be suitable, is their extreme density. E.g., Spotted gum is more than tough enough, but far too heavy, imo (and would also be a monumental pita to turn really crisp detail on). With really dense woods, I have to fine legs down to ridiculously spindly proportions, or I get chairs that are too 'unbalanced'. They are both heavy & awkward to pick up by the back rail. This is one of the reasons I like 'young' River Oak; it's not as dense as more mature stuff, but still plenty stiff & strong enough for the job, turns well, & takes fine detail, too. So I reckon it's up there with the best.

When it comes to seats, the wood needs some different properties. Here you want a wood that is tough without being too heavy. River oak would not be my choice for this application. In Nth. America they used Pine, partly because their Elms were a bit too dense, and compensated for the weaker material by making the seats thicker. To my mind they managed to make them look even better than the Elm seats, but that's purely a matter of opinion, of course. Partly because my first exposure to chairmaking was in Nth America, I've used Kauri & Hoop, rather than hardwoods, for many of my chairs, but I've also tried some softer 'hardwoods' like (southern) Silky oak that worked ok for particular chairs, 'cept I've had a few glue failures with S.O., & I still haven't worked out why. There are plenty of other rainforest woods that could be used, but they are harder to get unless you live in the right places. Your choices may be influenced as much by how you prefer to finish your chairs. If you want to leave your chairs 'au natural', you might want to choose woods that 'go together' in some way. If your preference is to stain/paint (as the 'originals' were), you can simply choose based on what's suitable & available, without worrying about matching. People really differ here. I made a chair for a young nephew many years back, fully intending to stain the pale seat & back rail to blend with the very dark wattle of the legs & back spindles, but my sister loved the stark contrast & insisted I put nothing but a clear finish on it: Chair wattle & jac.jpg


In the months after that pic was taken, the wattle went nearly black & the seat/rail stayed a light cream. At first I was offended by her aesthetic sense, but came to like it a lot myself, after a while.

Originally Posted by JDarvall

... And after a while, advantages in local timbers over european ones becomes clear too, as shocking as it may sound.

I'd like to hear a reversal on it all one day…..like….' yeah I was forced to use elm, because I ran out of river oak. "

You can't deny two advantages - our own woods are here and available (even plentiful, if you are lucky enough to be in the right spot)! But yeah, in general I reckon it's far nicer to have furniture made out of appropriate (& often attractive) local species, than make them from exotic woods just because it's 'traditional'. But whatever you make them from, it's not too difficult to find local woods that are structurally adequate. It's a bit harder to make them aesthetically pleasing, but what I've seen of your chairs, Jake, you certainly do alright in that department.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

I'm with you 110% on that, Jake. Indeed, we have plenty of excellent woods to choose from, I've just settled on a couple that suit, that I can easily get my hands on. The northern hemisphere has far fewer species of suitable woods, at least in the areas where these sorts of chairs originated, but what they do have is plenty good enough - easy to turn, takes fine detail & hs sufficient strength. Whether our woods are better or worse than European equivalents, is a debate that would be hard to sustain, because any wood can be excellent for one property, less good in another. My take would be that we have a good number of potential contenders for legs & spindles. One thing that does go against many woods that would otherwise be suitable, is their extreme density. E.g., Spotted gum is more than tough enough, but far too heavy, imo (and would also be a monumental pita to turn really crisp detail on). With really dense woods, I have to fine legs down to ridiculously spindly proportions, or I get chairs that are too 'unbalanced'. They are both heavy & awkward to pick up by the back rail. This is one of the reasons I like 'young' River Oak; it's not as dense as more mature stuff, but still plenty stiff & strong enough for the job, turns well, & takes fine detail, too. So I reckon it's up there with the best.

When it comes to seats, the wood needs some different properties. Here you want a wood that is tough without being too heavy. River oak would not be my choice for this application. In Nth. America they used Pine, partly because their Elms were a bit too dense, and compensated for the weaker material by making the seats thicker. To my mind they managed to make them look even better than the Elm seats, but that's purely a matter of opinion, of course. Partly because my first exposure to chairmaking was in Nth America, I've used Kauri & Hoop, rather than hardwoods, for many of my chairs, but I've also tried some softer 'hardwoods' like (southern) Silky oak that worked ok for particular chairs, 'cept I've had a few glue failures with S.O., & I still haven't worked out why. There are plenty of other rainforest woods that could be used, but they are harder to get unless you live in the right places. Your choices may be influenced as much by how you prefer to finish your chairs. If you want to leave your chairs 'au natural', you might want to choose woods that 'go together' in some way. If your preference is to stain/paint (as the 'originals' were), you can simply choose based on what's suitable & available, without worrying about matching. People really differ here. I made a chair for a young nephew many years back, fully intending to stain the pale seat & back rail to blend with the very dark wattle of the legs & back spindles, but my sister loved the stark contrast & insisted I put nothing but a clear finish on it:


In the months after that pic was taken, the wattle went nearly black & the seat/rail stayed a light cream. At first I was offended by her aesthetic sense, but came to like it a lot myself, after a while.

Some of my beliefs are similar to yours but different in others.

For me its hard to describe accurately any of it without fear of generalising. It really depends on what ones doing with the part, and I think theres so many ways/designs possible. And I can't detail everything here. But I'll try.

For me(please keep in mind these are just my personal opinions)….. if your using mixed timbers in a chair, spotted gums weight isn't an issue, because it goes into the thin bent parts which volume doesn't contribute much to the overall design. ie. you don't put it into the seat. Whats great about spotted gum is it bends tighter than the other timbers. So it'll tend to go into crinoline stretchers or crests. It was the only timber I get to bend in a 3dimentional style bend for a rocker. Had no choice, I had to use it or abandon that bend.

Also the denser the timber usually the thinner the timber needs to be to pull off certain bends. which relates to its strength. I've had some style failures early(my fault due to not enough style thickness), but they weren't related to the thinness of the back spindles. With straight grain, a very dense timber can easily be reduced to 8mm diameter. I've got chairs on the veranda sitting out in the weather, we've been sitting on for a few years with 8mm thin spindles in grey gum that hold up.

Weight isn't really an issue if its an occasional type armchair that sits in a corner that will be moved around as infrequently as a table. Or a rocking chair. Riveroak density varies anyway I've noticed, sometimes not related to the age of the tree. For the side chairs and rockers I've made in river oak I've never noticed a problem in weight at all. Which is a good thing aesthetically in Australia I've noticed because most people don't take well to staining. Also again if the seat is denser you can reduce the volume of the seat and therefore its weight.

Unlike you, I don't like young river oak because of its weight. I like it because some kinds of it bend very tight radiuses. The kind of radiuses that are needed for crinoline stretchers and highchair continuous arm bows. The kind that allow you to change designs to avoid 'copy' insults even though some 'copying' must happen in chairs or their not even chairs. Bends like beech. There's still some factor in it I've yet to identify that lets some bend well and some not, but the stuff that I've noticed that bends well, is much softer with very small medullary rays. I look at beech which has been bent in a similar way, and noticed a similar thing. Small specks. Then I look at the failed older river oak bends with large medullary rays, and the failure tends to originate at the long hard medullarys whose density is obviously so much harder than the surrounding wood. It becomes obvious that the small medullary rays give the material more consistent density which gives better bending tolerances. But then sometimes it still won't even bend, despite all else being the same(no runout, moisture, steamer setup, radius, strapping pressures etc) . But thats a nice thing. When there's no mystery, feeling goes sterile.

You can't deny two advantages - our own woods are here and available (even plentiful, if you are lucky enough to be in the right spot)! But yeah, in general I reckon it's far nicer to have furniture made out of appropriate (& often attractive) local species, than make them from exotic woods just because it's 'traditional'. But whatever you make them from, it's not too difficult to find local woods that are structurally adequate. It's a bit harder to make them aesthetically pleasing, but what I've seen of your chairs, Jake, you certainly do alright in that department.....

ta mate.

Unfortunately, I'm noticing that being here, doesn't mean its always readily available, at least where I live. There is resistance with obtaining river oak even though its plentiful in my part of the world. Heavy Politics. Riveroaks are said to be important to the environment in that they stop erosion of the creek beds etc. So there is negativity put out there by plenty, implying its use may increase its popularity, which will in turn cause overuse of the timber and the rivers will fall apart.

I'm all for environment friendly. I love walking the creeks. Especially when there's no one to be seen. And would never actively attempt to drop trees without approval. its too much drama. And I just don't have the means anyway. Don't even have a 4wd. And I don't have the finances to organise it, and don't really want to deal with the organisation needed anyway to maintain and run such processes. End up thinking 'whats the point'.

The timber I get is offered to me when it has to be removed. either its causing trouble in the creek due to flooding. or some kind of road hazard or the base is rotten or whathaveyou. I work alone with a slow construction style that will never progress to big business, so I don't need any more timber than that offers anyway.

Despite this, because of these feelings of protection for the tree, sometimes I'm frowned at as soon as they see the stuff. So its getting harder and harder to get and sell. And I'm getting a bit over the negativity despite the promising signs. Most of the negativity is brought out because its not traditional. Woodworkers with far more experience than me, but obviously very little experience using the stuff looking for dirt.

I'm not entirely convinced it always helps the environment anyway. I mean if you blasted though with heavy machinery for a massive mill it wood but...
- some farmers I've talked to say, in some situations the trees cause more erosion, especially when they are close packed, in that when the floods come through the interlocking vines pull big groups of them down at once ripping great big holes out of the creek.
- some of the trees just aren't growing on the creek bed anyway. On the flats.

When a tree comes down in the creek the environmental push is to just 'leave it'. But then I've heard farmers been told to chop them in half to stop them damming up, and let it all drift downstream.

And I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a favourite for a miller to dress for say a building material. I wouldn't be surprised that many would describe it as being impractical to mill. A lot of waste if taken through a mill. Its drys warped, cupped etc, only really wanted for those who are willing to pick through it.

no doubt there's more facts for and against I'm not aware of.

? I don't know ? leads to the thought that generalisation and impetuous assumption is the true cause of problems.

Have a good week mate.

Jake, I wouldn't disagree with anything you've said - you make a much wider range of chair types than I do (& a lot more of them!), and need to consider different structural as well as aesthetic qualities. I've done very little bending, but when I need to do any in future, I will keep in mind your experiences with Spotted Gum. (Though there seems to be Spotted Gum and Spotted Gum. The stuff I get around here is hard and can be very brittle stuff that I wouldn't have thought of bending, but Bushmiller gets very different material from his place in NSW.)

Yeah, fashion is a strange & fickle beast. There'll come a time when paint will be back "in" for furniture, and some of your chairs that you've so nicely matched up will get slathered in a good, thick coat of plastic....

When rabbiting on about seat material, I was thinking quite narrowly, of the sort of chair I posted the pic of. That particular chair is similar to our own kitchen table set, which get moved around quite a lot, and hauled out on the veranda and back regularly, so weight is an important factor in these chairs. I should probably say weight and balance because it's much more comfortable if the chair can be picked up by the back rail without wanting to twist your hand off, and it's obviously a combination of seat mass and front leg weight that determines this. So p'raps that's why I have a fetish for lighter seats. Indeed, you can trim seat mass by using thinner sections, which denser, tougher woods allow, but I also like the scuplted effect you get with a deeply carved seat, & for that you need thick sections, so all things lead to using a lighter seat wood, for me....

As to the politics of obtaining RO legally & morally, I think we are in the same boat, & singing from the same page of the hymnal. I'll back my own 'conservationist' credentials against anyone else's too, and the importance of RO in the waterways of the eastern watershed is pretty obvious (where it hasn't been choked out by Camphor laurel and Celtis!). Some folks let their zeal for "the environment" outweigh common sense, I think, after all, trees are a renewable resource! They also do their best job of grabbing carbon out of the air when young & growing vigorously, too, so there should be some sort of 'succession plan', I reckon. While cutting down healthy trees in the flood zone might be classed as environmental vandalism, I really don't see any technical reason not to harvest the occasional deadfall, or thin out the bush above the floodline, but anyone wanting to do that better check with their state authorities before firing up the Stihl, if they want to stay out of trouble. Fortunately, there's a source of the wood which is fairly steady, & perfectly legal. RO, or hybrids of RO (hybridised with what, I don't know), are popular street & park trees, and enough seem to either blow over or are chopped down to make way for buildings & dumped on the kerbside to keep this little wood-scrounger busy. I've got quite a few sets of potential chair bits stacked under the house.....

Avagoodweekend yerself,
Cheers,

Lost Art Press ... Chairmaker's Notebook

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Originally Posted by IanW

Jake, I wouldn't disagree with anything you've said - you make a much wider range of chair types than I do (& a lot more of them!), and need to consider different structural as well as aesthetic qualities. I've done very little bending, but when I need to do any in future, I will keep in mind your experiences with Spotted Gum. (Though there seems to be Spotted Gum and Spotted Gum. The stuff I get around here is hard and can be very brittle stuff that I wouldn't have thought of bending, but Bushmiller gets very different material from his place in NSW.)

I don't have good comparative experience with it though. Only stuff from the local mill which bent well at about 15% and dry. eg. about 20x200x600 bent well for crests. Pre-turned rocker styles bent best in spotted gum out of all the timbers. Well, young river oak bent better but I felt I wanted a stronger timber for the styles.

I remember an old boat builder mentioning some rule he used on spotted gum. He said he only bothered bending 20%. Don't quote me on that number. All I remember was the point he was making that, he wouldn't bother attempting to bend spotted gum if it was completely dry. But I didn't understand that, because I got good results dry as well. I add extra water to my chamber, so I wondered if that was why dry worked, but there are always lots of variables with steam bending.

Yeah, fashion is a strange & fickle beast. There'll come a time when paint will be back "in" for furniture, and some of your chairs that you've so nicely matched up will get slathered in a good, thick coat of plastic....

I don't know. Does my head in trying to please everyone. In the end you get cold to it all and live more days feeling more comfortable avoiding people as much as possible.

I've always enjoyed staining timber. I like rubbing back pigment, revealing the grain. trying to make it a flow nicely. And staining/painting is ideal for windsors as well, as you know, because you can use the best timber for every part, no matter what the natural colours are. Particularily like black over red. yellow shellac over red timbers work well. Deep layers of red and black, but not so deep you can't pick the grain. But staining as you know is very difficult to get right. But if you like red stain then you risk people thinking your trying to make it look like a red timber.

But then Australians don't like stained timber. And even though I didn't even realise, since my head was so into it, apparently rubbing back is an attempt to distress timber to make it look old. So you get faking age comments. And staining can also be seen as trying to BS the public into thinking your using a 'better' timber. eg. I've used kwila a few times in stained timber (which looks good under black and yellow shellac) and that was seen as disguising an imported timber that was taken from say, urangutang habitat(even though it probably was timber taken legally with nothing to do with the animals). I would have up to 4 timber types in a stained chair and got over seeing confusion/sceptism on peoples faces having to describe every timber type and why it was done, so I would end up just mentioning one of the timber types. Which didn't help.

The truth on kwila is , I didn't have much money at the time and the mill that supplied kwila for decking was chucking out/burning beautifully straight grain kwila offcuts because it was under 600mm. Nobody wanted it under that, and It was to be just wasted. Really good stuff, except for the negative words 'offcuts' and 'imported' associated with it. And it bent well enough. I would have paid for it if I had the money and if there wasn't some kind of negative attachment associated with it that I had to try and interpret. I really don't know how a small time woodworker like myself making use of offcuts has any influence at all on any kind of these politics anyway.

Another one you get if you like staining timber black is that it looks like black steel. 'so use steel instead', but I don't even understand the comparison. When you rub back blackened timber you start seeing timber grain and different levels of texture.

So have to give up on staining.

When rabbiting on about seat material, I was thinking quite narrowly, of the sort of chair I posted the pic of. That particular chair is similar to our own kitchen table set, which get moved around quite a lot, and hauled out on the veranda and back regularly, so weight is an important factor in these chairs. I should probably say weight and balance because it's much more comfortable if the chair can be picked up by the back rail without wanting to twist your hand off, and it's obviously a combination of seat mass and front leg weight that determines this. So p'raps that's why I have a fetish for lighter seats. Indeed, you can trim seat mass by using thinner sections, which denser, tougher woods allow, but I also like the scuplted effect you get with a deeply carved seat, & for that you need thick sections, so all things lead to using a lighter seat wood, for me....

I see what your saying. But I wonder if differences in weights are really significant anyway in most chairs.

I never bothered weighing my chairs till now. I think weight is obviously important with large furnishings like sideboards or cupboards, but with chairs I Just didn't think its thats significant. But maybe it is. Doing stools at the moment. A few different timbers so a comparison can be made. Might be interesting anyway.

1st pic -riveroak stool……. 3.8kg.
2nd pic - jacaranda …… 2.5kg
3rd pic - red cedar….. 3 kg
4th pic - shows me weighing a river oak stool. (uno, this is not BS . look proof) .

Question is……..is the river oak stool too heavy. Is about a 4kg bar stool too heavy. Cause apparently if I don't use a timber like red cedar the stool will be too heavy. (The red cedar stool I won't finish because its brother failed the strength test. Jacaranda was stronger. Riveroak was the strongest )

I don't have a pic of a river oak side chair (dining chair) because I couldn't take the photo while trying to balance it on the scales……..- 4.9kg.
Question is …. is a 5kg dining chair too heavy ?

As to the politics of obtaining RO legally & morally, I think we are in the same boat, & singing from the same page of the hymnal. I'll back my own 'conservationist' credentials against anyone else's too, and the importance of RO in the waterways of the eastern watershed is pretty obvious (where it hasn't been choked out by Camphor laurel and Celtis!). Some folks let their zeal for "the environment" outweigh common sense, I think, after all, trees are a renewable resource! They also do their best job of grabbing carbon out of the air when young & growing vigorously, too, so there should be some sort of 'succession plan', I reckon. While cutting down healthy trees in the flood zone might be classed as environmental vandalism, I really don't see any technical reason not to harvest the occasional deadfall, or thin out the bush above the floodline, but anyone wanting to do that better check with their state authorities before firing up the Stihl, if they want to stay out of trouble. Fortunately, there's a source of the wood which is fairly steady, & perfectly legal. RO, or hybrids of RO (hybridised with what, I don't know), are popular street & park trees, and enough seem to either blow over or are chopped down to make way for buildings & dumped on the kerbside to keep this little wood-scrounger busy. I've got quite a few sets of potential chair bits stacked under the house.....

I think, like most things, what really determines what your allowed to do comes down to things that are really quite unrelated. Things like...
…..popularity….asskissing…. who you donate to…. who you sleep with…. what school your kids go to ….. how well you bite your tongue…whether or not you people off or not on the net….. which church you go to… if you play football….. if you could be bothered with social circles etc etc.

or often they'll prefer to just waste it ...let the wood rot, burn or chip it.

Fortunately I don't need much to survive.

Originally Posted by JDarvall

....I remember an old boat builder mentioning some rule he used on spotted gum. He said he only bothered bending 20%. Don't quote me on that number. All I remember was the point he was making that, he wouldn't bother attempting to bend spotted gum if it was completely dry. But I didn't understand that, because I got good results dry as well. I add extra water to my chamber, so I wondered if that was why dry worked, but there are always lots of variables with steam bending.......

Jake, somewhere, possibly in Hoadley's book, I've read that it's easier to bend wood that has not yet dried down beyond 25% or some magic figure like that. If it's been dried right down to 12% or so, it never bends quite as well, even if you soak it & re-saturate it. He is talking about Nth. American woods like Ash & Hickory, so it may or may not apply to our woods. What the underlying mechanics/chemistry/physics of this is, I have no idea, but perhaps it's a general truism and your boat-builder friend has discovered this for himself, through trial & error.

As far as mixing timber types to have the best wood for each part of the chair, that's exactly what I'm trying to do, too. The blokes what first made stick chairs like these did it, then covered it all up with stain or paint, because, I'm told, they thought the shapes were more aesthetically important than the colours. (I agree with that, and it looks like you have a similar philosophy). I've found I can live with the different colours, at least sometimes, & I would have thought that pointing out the different woods and explaining how each has been selected for its unique qualities, to do a specific job, would be a good sales pitch. But I guess I'm no salesman, either..

Originally Posted by JDarvall

.... Question is……..is the river oak stool too heavy. Is about a 4kg bar stool too heavy. Cause apparently if I don't use a timber like red cedar the stool will be too heavy. (The red cedar stool I won't finish because its brother failed the strength test. Jacaranda was stronger. Riveroak was the strongest )

I don't have a pic of a river oak side chair (dining chair) because I couldn't take the photo while trying to balance it on the scales……..- 4.9kg.
Question is …. is a 5kg dining chair too heavy ? ......

Short answer, not necessarily. But I think it's not so much a question of absolute weight, as overall balance, bothin the aesthetic & physical senses. As I tried to explain, if the chair has a seat that's too 'heavy' for the rest of the structure, it looks clumsy & makes the chair awkward to pick up & move, unless you just shove it across the floor. I just weighed a chair like the one I posted above, and it came in at almost exactly 4Kg., which isn't far off your side-chair. I see by your pics that you have really shaped those seats, and taken away a lot of wood from the front, so I suspect they are at least as 'balanced' as my effort. They look damn fine to my eye!

Bar stools are a bit different from a chair, there is no back to pick them up by, and wherever you grasp the seat, you will be closer to the centre of gravity than you are holding a chair by the crest rail. I've made few stools, and without any backs to complicate things, they were naturally 'balanced', close enough.

Next time you are going past one of the major furniture stores, grit your teeth and walk in (it will be a traumatic experience, but you'll survive it! ). Find a couple of those great fugly things they call "Colonial" chairs & try to move them, & you'll see what I am blabbing about. If they are anything like what I'm thinking of, you'll find them twice as weighty & far more awkward to lift than your heaviest chair. Don't look too hard at the disgusting turnings or the utter lack of finesse of the things, or you might break down & run out of the shop screaming...

Originally Posted by JDarvall

.... Fortunately I don't need much to survive.

No, but you'd still like your good work to be properly appreciated, I suspect.......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Jake, somewhere, possibly in Hoadley's book, I've read that it's easier to bend wood that has not yet dried down beyond 25% or some magic figure like that. If it's been dried right down to 12% or so, it never bends quite as well, even if you soak it & re-saturate it. He is talking about Nth. American woods like Ash & Hickory, so it may or may not apply to our woods. What the underlying mechanics/chemistry/physics of this is, I have no idea, but perhaps it's a general truism and your boat-builder friend has discovered this for himself, through trial & error.

makes sense. Just have to experiment with the wood(timber/stuff) in front of you IMO. I remember a few situations with bending even around say 20% actually led to worse results where the timber would be more prone to compression failure on the inside of the curve. The tightest bends I've got so far were actually with a completely air dried river oak. As tight as small bentwood chair parts. bout 12% not 20%. So (shrug). For that timber I sensed if it was wetter I wouldn't been able to balance compression and tension on the bends. Tension on the strap just too fine a line to manage.

Just too many variables I think for any one statement to cover all situations. Thats a problem I've found with many books on the subject. Experience in what your doing in particular most important. And I suppose 'experience' and 'self taught' pretty much go hand in hand.

Got a picture of the former I used for a highchair continuous arm bow. The pull-up radius was near 150mm (maybe it was 125 or 200?. I'd have to go and check). Point is they couldn't get much tighter yet it was with completely dry timber. air dried of course. kilned not as good I've noticed.

As far as mixing timber types to have the best wood for each part of the chair, that's exactly what I'm trying to do, too. The blokes what first made stick chairs like these did it, then covered it all up with stain or paint, because, I'm told, they thought the shapes were more aesthetically important than the colours. (I agree with that, and it looks like you have a similar philosophy). I've found I can live with the different colours, at least sometimes, & I would have thought that pointing out the different woods and explaining how each has been selected for its unique qualities, to do a specific job, would be a good sales pitch. But I guess I'm no salesman, either..

I like what you've done….. I don't know. I know what I like. I've given up trying to work out what the consensus is on anything.

Short answer, not necessarily. But I think it's not so much a question of absolute weight, as overall balance, bothin the aesthetic & physical senses. As I tried to explain, if the chair has a seat that's too 'heavy' for the rest of the structure, it looks clumsy & makes the chair awkward to pick up & move, unless you just shove it across the floor. I just weighed a chair like the one I posted above, and it came in at almost exactly 4Kg., which isn't far off your side-chair. I see by your pics that you have really shaped those seats, and taken away a lot of wood from the front, so I suspect they are at least as 'balanced' as my effort. They look damn fine to my eye!

Bar stools are a bit different from a chair, there is no back to pick them up by, and wherever you grasp the seat, you will be closer to the centre of gravity than you are holding a chair by the crest rail. I've made few stools, and without any backs to complicate things, they were naturally 'balanced', close enough.

so, 1kg difference between your chair and mine, due to a lighter timber in the seat. And 5kg seems under a lot of other commercial professionally sold chairs as well, so I don't think I'll worry.

I understand your description of balance, but I think 'looking heavy' and 'being heavy' is what can confuse in description. Unlike some, Looking heavy in my opinion is worse than being heavy…… For some reason there seems to be a great deal of people out there her spend every waking moment moving furniture around.

Next time you are going past one of the major furniture stores, grit your teeth and walk in (it will be a traumatic experience, but you'll survive it! ). Find a couple of those great fugly things they call "Colonial" chairs & try to move them, & you'll see what I am blabbing about. If they are anything like what I'm thinking of, you'll find them twice as weighty & far more awkward to lift than your heaviest chair. Don't look too hard at the disgusting turnings or the utter lack of finesse of the things, or you might break down & run out of the shop screaming...

caaaareful Ian. What if say, one of your next door neighbours loves her/his chairs bought from one of those stores. Reads what you've just written, gets the shites and causes a chain reaction of dramas directed at you as a result of you…..daring to have an opinion AND her/him spending her/his free time searching out dirt on you. your screwed.

I see what your saying. I don't mind the look of some of the stuff they sell (not the colonial stuff like you). When I look closely at some of the joints I worry for them, but then I've made some mistakes in the past so I shouldn't rubbish.

Its also a bit tricky for me to rubbish, because some craftspeople made them. And Guessing they were poorly paid and probably under the thumb. I can't be rubbishing people like that.

But I get the gist of what your saying.

No, but you'd still like your good work to be properly appreciated, I suspect.......

Cheers,

Don't really care to be honest. Looking for appreciation may find me falling into social dramas. Who needs that !

I like to talk like what happening here occasionally. And I like making my chairs. But I also like balancing it with working with my wife/lover/partner/friend/debater(?) because her work is no less important than mine….like seeing smiles on my kids faces.

I do like appreciation though from the ladies when I give them something I've made and they kiss you on the cheek (in a non sexual way) that makes you blush like a schoolboy, followed by guilt at enjoying the kiss from someone other than your wife/lover/partner/friend/debater(?) etc , that you should forget about but can't because of the guilt