If you are looking for a travisher, here is another fantastic option: Allan Williams, a chairmaker and toolmaker who makes three kinds of travishers. Recently I ordered two travishers from Allan, a standard one with a 4-1/2″-radius blade and a tighter-radius tool (3″) for fixing student mistakes and doing some work at the back edge…
Read moreThis seven-stick comb-back chair is built from a 2,000-year-old oak tree that was preserved in a Polish bog and recently harvested. The wood, which is remarkable and difficult to photograph, varies from charcoal black to a beautiful olive to a warm chestnut brown. This chair is one of my newer designs; it uses a four-piece…
Read moreAlmost every time I post a photo of one of my chair seats in progress, I get this question: “Do you use an angle grinder and (insert spinning tooling name here) to rough out your seats?” I answer: “No, I use a scorp.” But I don’t really talk about why. I think this sort of…
Read moreI have one important piece of advice when I teach our authors to take photos, junior editors to design book pages or students to design chairs. Here it is: Never trust your first instinct. Force yourself to take another photo from a different angle. Make an alternative page layout. Try a different arrangement of sticks….
Read moreAs a woodworker, sometimes I ask too much of the wood. Instead of just putting a cushion on a chair, I’ll do everything possible to force the wood to be as comfortable as possible. Naked. With no help from anything cloth, leather, foam, feathery or furry. So, I have spent years (almost two decades) learning…
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