|
|
 |
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
by
Cathy Dalrymple
photos: Brenda Falvey |
BENT INTO SHAPE |
| Rustic
twig furniture is easy to make and its design can be tailored
to suit your needs |
For those
of us who take our woodworking a little too seriously, here’s
a chance to have some fun, forget the carpenter’s square
and bend some rules. Rustic furniture became quite popular in
19th-century England, when a longing for simpler, pre-industrial
times prevailed. The garden became a retreat and rustic furniture
helped reacquaint oneself with natural surroundings. This style
also flourished in the New World, particularly in the Adirondack
area of upstate New York. I live in the Kootenay region of British
Columbia—about as far away from New York as you can get—but
rustic furniture makes sense here too. No matter where you live,
willow is a popular choice of materials for this sort of work.
There are more than 250 different species of willow around the
world.
Gather Your Wood
The first rule here is to minimize the environmental impact
of your harvesting. Try not to thin a particular area; instead,
take a little from a few neighbouring sources. The sort of wood
that grows in the undergrowth of hardwood forests, called “coppice
wood,” makes for attractive twig furniture because it’s
long, straight, pliable and generally easy to work with.
The materials list and instructions
are flexible; they’re just a guide. Rustic furniture must
be your own design because no two sets of building twigs are
the same. And don’t be afraid to use found objects in
place of twigs. I’ve seen old oars used as arms and back
legs. Rusted tools such as hoes and shovels or even old skis
and fishing poles are also worth considering, depending on your
tolerance for these things.
You can gather wood at any time
of the year, but early spring is best because the leaves aren’t
out yet, so you can find suitable pieces more easily and you
can then see the entire length of what you’re cutting.
The ground is still hard and bugs are also dormant—a fact
worth considering because willow is usually found in marshy
areas.
When gathering for the backrest
(called the “hoop benders”) and arm parts, look
for the longest and straightest pieces with no bends or crooks.
Always gather more than required because some will break and
some won’t be as straight as they appeared in the forest.
Store your wood with their ends in a bucket of water and they’ll
stay pliable for a couple of weeks. While I try to keep the
front and back legs fairly straight, the sides and cross members
can be irregular as long as the length is correct. I like to
find pieces with Y’s in them to create visual interest.
As you work, bevel the ends of frame members using a sharp blade.
Most break-off type knife blades aren’t strong enough.
A good jackknife or a razor-sharp chisel works well.
Frame It
Screw all the frame pieces together using cup washers and #8
deck screws. Drill pilot holes to avoid splitting the wood.
I cut all the pieces to size, labelled them with masking tape,
then placed them in bunches to separate the pieces. Have a variety
of screw lengths at hand to accommodate the thickness of parts
you are joining. I find two inch, 2 1/2" and three inch
screws are most useful.
Begin by connecting the front
and back legs with side braces and the top seat brace. You need
to make two identical frames, one for each side of the chair.
Also, remember that the chair’s rear legs need to be angled
back slightly to create a comfortable backrest. Put your two
leg sets on top of each other and adjust them to match as closely
as possible before securing the side braces and locking their
shape. Join the two leg frames together with two top braces
at the front of the chair.
Next, add the rear seat brace
set about five or six inches ahead of the back leg. You’ll
need this space later for nailing your back hoop benders. Add
the two lower back cross braces six inches and eight inches
from the bottom of the back leg. The back bender brace attaches
just above the finished seat level.
Add the top cross brace, which
also creates a place to secure the hoop benders. This piece
is screwed down into the top of the back legs. The armrest nailer
goes on about 18" from the bottom. Finally, add the last
front cross brace behind the front legs, near the bottom.
|
|
PART 1 | PART 2 | PART
3 |
|
|
|
|
| FREE
NEWSLETTER |
Subscribe to our newsletter. Every few weeks, you'll get a behind-the-scenes
peek at the magazine, the web site and the folks who put it all together.
CLICK HERE |
|
|
PROJECTS
