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• Follow CDC guidelines: If you have tested positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, you are expected to follow the current CDC guidelines.  

Make a Comfortable Counter Height Chair with Michael Fortune

Have you ever wanted to build a chair with a master chair maker? Here is your opportunity without having to travel to the far ends of the earth.

This tall chair builds on the comfortable Number Nine dining chair. With the additional height comes a footrest and additional structural members. The chair students will make can be customized to fit most counter or bar heights. This chair involves mortise and tenon construction throughout, with a coopered seat and back to make it wonderfully strong and comfortable. During the week each student will make the patterns so you can build more once you return home.

This workshop requires some level of experience and is well suited for students with intermediate skill levels.

The Guild has arranged for Michael to be assisted by Glenn DeSouza, an accomplished woodworker with experience making this chair with Michael in recent workshops.

The images are of a side chair in walnut and ash for illustration. We will be making our chairs In cherry and ash. If you desire to make your chair out of species other than this, contact Chip Webster at jdwebster3@gmail.com. Once you learn the techniques and the process, you will be prepared to building any number of chairs in any wood species of your choice.

The Guild will offer band saw clinics to provide an opportunity to learn and practice proficiency cutting to a line. Additional Guild assistants will also be available to provide assistance.

The structure for this chair is made with mortise and tenon joinery while the seat and back are made using the technique of coopering.  With this method the seat and back become compound curves that are very comfortable.  Shaping the curves is done with a surprisingly simple shop made hand tool that will be made during the workshop. The jigs to reproduce these chairs are documented so they can be copied and used in your own workshop.

What you’ll learn:

·        The dimensions for a comfortable residential dining or desk chair

·        Through wedged mortise and tenon joinery

·        How to make a simple coopering tool for inside compound curves

·        Layout of compound cuts

·        Pattern bandsawing

·        Safe method of cutting compound tapers on the table saw