Newsletter: Late Summer 2022
James Mursell
Welcome!
I have had almost a month without chairmaking, which has been no bad thing considering the crazy heat we have been enduring, and I am now ready to start again, with a course beginning next week! Having avoided COVID for two years, I finally succumbed mid-July. This meant a different holiday than planned, visiting Oxford and North Wales instead of Iceland – maybe next year!
The break had allowed me to catch up on maintenance: repainting the front of the workshop and tidying up the surroundings; and developing ideas for a new chair.
I will be at a new show (for me) over the August Bank Holiday, at Hyde Hall in Essex. It should be a good one and there are further details below!
I continue to send travishers and other chair making tools around the world, so it’s encouraging to know that there are still plenty of Windsor chairs being made, all over the planet!
All in all, I’m looking forward to the final third of 2022.
Best wishes
James
Chairmaking Courses
With a choice of 7 chairs to make, there are dates through to early February next year on my website, including a settee course for keen returning students. Currently there are several vacancies on most courses, but it is quite variable. If you are interested in coming on a course, please get in touch and I can tell you the latest availability.
Craft in Focus: RHS Hyde Hall, Chelmsford, Essex CM3 8ET, 26-29 August, 10-5 daily
Although I have not exhibited at this show before, I have heard excellent reports and I expect it will be of the same high standard as the other Craft in Focus shows at Wisley and Hever Castle. The show is free to RHS members.
It would be a pleasure to see you there!
News from the Workshop!
First sack back course
In June I ran the first sack back course. Four great chairs were produced, and you will see pictures of two of them after they had been oiled at home. It tuned out that the owners of these two chairs, Rupert and Dawn, had worked together 20 years ago and had not seen each other since!
Travelling from Japan
The final course before the summer break was special for a different reason. I have had students come from all over the world, but usually in conjunction with other reasons for travelling. This time Toshio travelled all the way from Japan, just to make a chair at The Windsor Workshop! Being an experienced woodworker, he assembled his chair without glue and then flat-packed it in a suitcase to get it home. With the help of some friends, he completed it on his return, and you can see the excellent result below.
It was an honour to have Toshio in the workshop and I hope that he will make more chairs at home!
All hands are not the same!
Chairs made on my courses tend to be all very similar, but this Classic course was marked by the imaginative treatments of the hands on several chairs.
New Chair
In my last newsletter, I mentioned that I was developing a Welsh-inspired chair and I even took the first prototype to Hever Castle in the spring, where it had a good reception. Version #2 was better but was just too big and heavy.
I have always said to my students that it is easy to make a heavy chair and much harder to make something light and elegant. I had forgotten my advice!
Developing new chairs for me is certainly not a guaranteed process! I have now gone back to square one and have a design that I will be working on next week. The Welsh influence has not completely disappeared, but this chair will be lighter and hopefully more elegant than the last two.
It should be interesting to make as it has a substantial bend for the arm. Lots of wood will be removed post-bending to make it light, but it may be a challenge for my standard bending rigs as the cross section is 32 x 32mm. Here is a video of the process and I’m delighted to report that it was a complete success.
Painting Workshop and Blueberries
My workshop was built in the ‘50’s as a cattle barn. It was a typical construction for its time, with concrete framework filled in with double-skin brick and a single skin roof. Nothing was done to it until 2006, when it was converted to the workshop and thankfully, given the current energy prices, 80mm of insulation was added all round!
The external brickwork was of engineering bricks and these are not ideal for painting. The entrance wall faces due south and although the builders did a pretty good job back in 2006, the paint was flaking badly and needed replacing!
If I didn’t know before, I know now that I was not put on this earth to be a painter and decorator. However, after wire brushing (angle grinder) the wall, priming twice and top coating, I am happy with the result. I hope it will last at least another 10 years!
In the spring I planted three blueberry plants in big tubs in front of the workshop and they have been growing very well. I have been wanting to grow them for the past 35 years, since an abortive attempt to grow 2 acres of them. I am hoping for a crop next year, though bird netting will be essential as they absolutely love them!
Energy
The spiralling cost of energy is on everyone’s minds at the moment and I am thinking of ways to mitigate the effect on my business:
Solar Cells/Battery Storage
I have two south-facing roofs (approx 250m2), with a clear view of the sun all day and it occurs to me that these might be ideal sites for solar cells/battery to generate some of my own electricity,
If you have any experience of installing such a system in the southeast, any recommendations of good installers would be very much appreciated.
The Old Fashioned Way!
Here is a wonderful video showing some of the old chair making processes involving the bodgers. This was posted by Chris Schwatz in his blog – see link below. Chris always has plenty to say about Windsor chair making, though he insists on calling them ‘stick’ chairs!
Lost Art Press: https://blog.lostartpress.com/