nearly zero power tools and The Dutch Elm Disease

..except for band saw and a pillar drill. Total power tool ON time, 6 minutes, I promise. Other than that, the only noise was mallet... and Ambrose's tractor

Not many makers are lucky enough to get their hands on a piece of Elm nowadays.. It is believed to be extinct. Wikipedia reckons "very few mature elms were left in Britain or much of continental Europe". But what is a very few..? we don't know, what we do know is that 25million of them had died in the 70ties and they don't sell it at any timber merchants. Well, Ambrose got some.. and we made some chairs from it.

2 inch elm with saw mill and band saw marks

I did pick a difficult piece. The more difficult the nicer looking, but with only hand tools and this mad grain- borderline impossible. It worked though, I am sitting on it.

Let me give you a bit of the context.

Having spent most of my making hours working sheet material to a perfect finish, straight lines and a hipster look, I did need something more wonky and organic to make or I'd just explode. I did manage to make a curved front wardrobe last year, and I really enjoyed it, but curved just doesn't seem to be in. Linear, linear, I was seriously considering a pottery course. Ok, there was Mark from SmithDawson asking for 2m diameter conference table, but still, even that, I could not come up with a design I'd be happy to propose.. If I made it out of wood, it'd still show planks and would be directional, only option seemed Shou Sugi Ban charcoaled finish, still, round was calling.. Curvy...

I've stumbled across Ambrose Vevers at Clerkenwell design week 2015 and had his flyer stuck to my special wall for two years now. I typed it in. Bulls Eye. Not only I love Devon and would take any excuse to go there, now there is an experience I can just book up and live, and it is what I did. The experience is sitting in a perfect peace in a timber framed barn, in the Dartmoor National Park, on a shave horse mostly, with a massive barn doors opened to a view, that has nothing man-made in sight, and making something out of wood. "Something" is an understatement. Now, this dude, Ambrose, had always made things out of wood. I have a picture of a chair he made when he was 12. He lives and breaths wood and design. Wonky wood. He might be one of the last ones! Like an Elm itself! So the design I think is perfected, obviously Ambrose wouldn't think so, maybe, but we agree it's close.

After gauging out the bulk of it, time to get on the travisher and dish out the shape of my bum in this Elm seat, making sure my knackered ageing pelvis gets enough support there.

This is all good and well but it's still work. However nice, it is work, and all work no play makes Jack a dull boy, no? So there had to be a bit of getting lost in the moors, getting the van stuck in the tidal beech sands.. and 24knots wind sailing if that wasn't enough...

But I've made it back to the barn and... no one was there. That's because we needed power that day for steam bending and the boys were already at Ambrose's workshop, another epic location- with 40+ bee hives! and a massive cherry blossom tree. Mobile reception in Devon makes you feel like having a pigeon for sending messages would not be a step too far.

ok, we have used power for steam bending.

That day we all had to do 8+2 spindles that support the arm-rest, all from square pieces of timber, with a draw knife and spoke shave and a bit to round off with what looks like a massive pencil sharpener.

rounding off the bit of the leg that sits in the Elm seat

I was told to make a picture of all the components when ready... nah, too excited I was.. I want to sit on it, I want to sit on it..

From here it's a home straight, still possible to get it wrong with glueing but hey, I've done it a few times before.. Walnut wedges, trimming the legs flat, few finishing touches..

We've all done it! yes, everyone has made a chair! And on that note I thought it'd be so nice to cook some nice grub out in the open and just nourish the body a bit! We were all in high spirits but it was a week of hard work in the end. So a proper cowboy bean stew, egg and a slice of bread. Ambrose's sister also baked us a cake!

my very own Elm&Ash Windsor (kind of) chair