Newsletter: late spring 2024
James Mursell
Welcome!
Just a brief newsletter to tell you about a new show at Ardingly College, near Haywards Heath, that I will be attending 1st and 2nd June. Not only is it a new show for me, it is a brand-new show for the Sussex Guild. Also included, are a few steam-bending videos that may interest and amuse you!
Best wishes
James Mursell
Craft Show
Sussex Guild at Ardingly College, 10am – 5pm Saturday and Sunday 1st & 2nd June
Haywards Heath RH17 6SQ
Over 40 members of the Sussex Guild will be exhibiting their crafts at Ardingly College over the weekend. There will be jewellery, textiles, leather, ceramics, furniture and wood and we will be set up in the chapel and dining hall. It will be a great opportunity to meet the makers and also see inside this famous school, set in beautiful countryside.
It would be great to see you at the show. Do come and chat and perhaps think about signing up for a course!
Steam-bending
Every chair-making course at the Windsor Workshop involves bending wood with steam. The length of time that it takes to soften the wood, in the steam, varies depending on the cross section of the wood and also the species. These days I use ash exclusively for bending and the time varies from 90 minutes for the low back down to 13 minutes for the continuous arm bow. If the wood was oak, then the times would be reduced to 60 and 9 minutes respectively.
You will find a few examples shown below:
Continuous-arm Bend
This is probably the trickiest of all the bends and at least two people are needed to do it! On a course it takes 4 – real teamwork! The wood steams for just 13 minutes and is then bent into a ‘U’ shape. It is then held in place while the arms are bent down in the third dimension. One has about 90 seconds to achieve this. After that the wood is too cool to bend any more. The bend is then transferred to a keep and is dried.
Low back bend
The biggest bend of all my chairs. The cross section is 1 ¼” x 5” and this has to be bent into a tight ‘U’. You can see from the video that a large and powerful winch is required.
Bar Stool Crest
The wood is almost as large in cross-section as the low back, but the bend is not so tight, so a different approach can be taken to form the bend. A longer stick for the jack, near the end of the bend, would be a big improvement! Note the wet towel that I place over the bend to remove heat as quickly as possible. This stiffens up the wood and means that I can remove the strap after only a few minutes with little risk of the wood delaminating. Otherwise, it would need at least 15 minutes of cooling before release.