By the time we got to this chair, Stephen had become a fully qualified chair bore like me. We both just enjoy having a week down at Westonbirt, meeting old friends and making new ones, helping pass on tidbits of knowledge and challenging ourselves. You have to be careful not to interfere with the smooth running of the course though, so we did some preparation for this one.
Once we had agreed on shape and form, we drew a seat template to take with us, to make cutting easy. Next we laid the seat template on another piece of lining wallpaper and drew a bow shape to match. From the bow template we cut out a former made of three lengths of sturdy wood and laid onto a flat board. After drilling to make places to accept clamps, we set it aside and cut a length of ash to steam. As you can see from the top picture, the bow is tighter than it ends up when released.
Finally I cut a piece of the ‘firewood man’ ash board and Stephen took it away and drew up the pattern, transferred it to the wood and carved the relief. That must have been hard work, because the ash was really dry by now and very hard. It is good looking, though I think the front legs would have been better slightly splayed to match the sticks above the seat. The main problem is that the wide spread means that the arms are not really practical. A lesson learned in form and function.