Thread: Hi from Brisbane, with pics.

Originally Posted by chambezio

G'Day Steve
Welcome to the family. This site is such a great resource for information on very broad tpoics.
I am really taken by your chairs made from tree branches. I can imagine that the biggest part of putting them together is gathering the right shapes to come together to create the final form. Can you give us a "how to" mainly about how you joined the pieces together?
They are truly artistic and functional. Great work!!!

Hi Chambezio

Thanks for the welcome.

Im a tree lopper by trade and whenever I see an odd shaped branch in one of the trees I'm working on I bring it home and throw it on the ever growing pile in the backyard. Then when I have a free sunny day, I get them all out and spread then on the lawn and start making a basic shape, (cable ties are handy for holding things in place at this stage)

Once I have a basic frame, I just clamp the two pieces I want to join, pre drill and screw together. It kind of feels like cheating in a way, and in the future I would like to make them just using mortice and tenon joints and wooden pegs but this will do for now while I'm still practicing.

Then its just a matter of trying different pieces in different places just by holding it against the frame and seeing what it will look like and then screwing them on one by one. Makes for a very relaxing time I find, cricket on the radio, a couple of beers and slowly creating something that would have gone through the wood chipper otherwise.

I made the slats by first slicing with a chainsaw then smoothing and shaping with a Turbo Plane (Arbortech) attachment for the angle grinder.

I will take some more work in progress photos of the next one and put them up.

Cheers

Steve