I see chair sculpting in four phases: Construction, Hard Lines, Soft Lines, Transitions

During the construction phase you make the chair’s parts and join them using the band saw, table saw, lathe and other tools. Many of the hard lines are formed by this construction phase which ends with parts joined to each other. But most of these hard lines need to be transformed or sculpted so they form a flow from one part to the other. That is the topic for this article.

Where do I begin. Pick up a tool and see what happens. We are back to the fear problem unless we just jump in
and take a chance. Is everybody going to be good at it? No! There isn’t a to risk in comparison to many things we endeavor to do, but a lot to gain by trying.

First find a model for comparison. In my newest “Build A Maloof Inspired” Instructional bundle I do a video segment comparing and contrasting the Maloof Inspired Low Back Dining Chair roughed out, assembled and ready to sculpt and a finished chair. In the comparison I draw what I refer to as topographical lines on the chair to show the way surfaces transition in various radii to join other surfaces forming hard and soft lines. I used a white pencil on walnut to show these contours. For your own project a mental compare and contrast with a picture of the object you are sculpting would be of great benefit.

When I am unsure of finding my chair’s shape in the roughed out parts, I prefer to sculpt my prototypes with a rasp. I use Auriou rasps and the number system I will talk about relates to them. The lower the number the more coarse the higher the number the finer. The Auriou’s are hand stitched meaning their teeth are set by hand making that are totally random void of a pattern. The result is that they leave a much smoother cut which will not be furrow or tear-out if the rasp is used correctly. They also have teeth right up to and along the edge,allowing the sculptor to get into corners and crevices. They are a much harder cut on your wallet in that they average $100+ for each rasp. A set of 3 rasps I recommend will take care of a great many of your needs and is available at Highland Woodworking. There are other choices. Sam Maloof used Nicholson’s patternmaker’s rasp. They are the best of those not hand stitched.

The first rasps I grab are the combi flat #5 on one side #9 on the other and a big #10 cabinetmakers rasp that is curved on one side and flat on the other and comes to a point. cabinetmakers rasp. Work with how they cut on some long scrap. Use big muscles and make long sweeps focusing on holding the rasp at 45 degrees to the length of the piece of wood while pushing the rasp along the length . Do not saw with the rasp. When the cut is cleanest you have found its best working angle. Look at the rasp’s teeth and push the teeth in that direction.

While making long sweeps you will be establishing a flat. When I round over a surface with a rasp, I mentally divide the surface into a series of contiguous flats and then join them with flats until they appxoximate a radius that pleases me.

Start with an arm. How do you want the outside line of the arm to flow? Is it going to provide lift is it going to have a sweep and in what direction? A way to answer this question is by deciding whether the flow for the chair from any point of view is going to be generally up and back (uplifting) or down and back, etc.

Are there lines that will flow from the front leg through the arm. Is there a line which will continue into the back leg?

Start with the big rasps, using sweeping, big muscle strokes. Work on it until it smiles at you!

Remember the best tools in your kit are patience, persistence and attitude!

Let me qualify this as a discussion of art over engineering. The engineering qualities of the woodworker are very necessary as I have written before. This is more about freeing oneself from formula to producing what looks good to you and hopefully other observers.

Does nature or nurture make a wood sculptor? A man sat in the back of one of my Maloof Inspired Rocker Demo
Classes for a day and a half before raising his hand and stating, “I can put it together but I can’t shape it!” He went on to describe his totally frustrated attempts to do anything art related.

What are the human tools necessary for success as a sculptor of wood? Sight is huge but not totally necessary. If you can see the line or visualize it, you are ready to pick up the tools and sculpt. If not, you must become a student of sight. Try this activity. Most cars are automotive sculpture. Follow the hard lines (they define the edges or movement) and how they pull the eye around the car. Find the softer lines and how they cause transitions to be made from surface to surface or hard line to hard line. Make visual comparisons of two cars that are in a competing group. Observe a Camry and a Honda. This will really work well if both cars are the same color. How are the lines the same? How are they different? Observe how opposing surfaces meet. Is the line caused by the meeting of two surfaces that have different radii? What surfaces are concave? Which are convex? Where are the flat surfaces? Where are the shadows? What causes the shadows? Train your powers of observation. Now describe the lines and decide what their purposes are in the over-all design. Do the same thing with nature. Trees, leaves, flowers all have shapes, lines and surfaces in opposition. How do they work together to form the whole?

The first sentence in the previous paragraph sounds ridiculous and yes, I am sure an overstatement. Touch is huge and can help if you have a vision deficit ! When I started studying Sam Maloof’s work I saw them in a museum setting and I explored Sam’s chairs kinesthetically. I touched and rubbed them with my fingers every time the security guard turned his head. I was using my fingers to get the details. Just another way to program them to memory. As I sculpt I am always touching and asking myself how does it feel? Is it flat, hollow, round? How does it flow?

Get a ball of modeler’s clay and form surfaces in opposition that you like and form a lines at the transition between the two. Visualize , think and feel, you are on your way!

The Maloof Inspired Rocker project that I teach, like most chairs or functional furniture is evaluated in the end as how well did form meet function? The woodworker’s style dictates what comes easiest and what will be the hardest to accomplish, form or function. I have had students that could sculpt beautiful lines but really struggled with the unforgiving process of creating tight structural joints. They are the artists. Being an artist is a blessing until you struggle on the engineering side of your project. Plans are seldom if scarcely used. They get in the way of what’s important. It’s all form (lines, curve, textures and colors) to the #1 artist. Their chair may look good but might not sit or rock safely. It may never go together.

On the other end of the woodworking continuum lives the engineer. The engineer typically has all the tools perfectly sharpened ready to follow explicit instructions using plans with precise measurements. Joinery is tight and functional and the chair will rock and support the sitter but the sculpting shows a failure to take risks to form their own curves and explore lines that would make the chair flow.

It’s important that you know where you are on the continuum. If you are a 4 you are more of an artist but very close to being well-balanced. An 8 would describe a woodworker whose strong suit was following directions but short on taking artistic risks.

If you know where you would fall on the continuum you will know your strengths from which you can work from and the areas of risk on which you should work the most. The purpose is to grow at whatever you do.

I would like to think of myself as a 5 (being very well balanced) when in reality I am surely a 4 working harder at the engineering side meaning I don’t like to measure or deal with identifying a radius as long as I am happy with the results. Sculpting is my preference but to teach and publish I must identify, quantify and communicate information in an organized, precise way like an engineer.

Well my method was to leave it in the truck, go in, hug the wife and wait for my beloved to head for her favorite chair in the bedroom so I could usher the the tool or tools past the front door on the way to the shop. Then I blend it into the general collection as quickly as possible and get rid of all incriminating packaging ASAP. You probably do something very similar. It doesn’t really matter how wealthy or poor you are we all have the same problems just a different number of zeroes at the end of them. The real point is that we don’t want to and can’t waste money on tools that are non-productive, mediocre or promise to do a lot but don’t do anything well.

My first tool was a radial arm saw. The Sears info said it would crosscut, rip, route and perform great feats of joinery. My uncle said, “Don’t believe all that, if you can get one tool that does a single job well. You will have something!” The saw crosscut well if you kept visitors from leaning against the saw’s table (pushed it out of square). The motor ran at one speed making it a terrible router (too slow) and dangerous for anything else.

Finally I’ll get to the topic. The first thing you need to decide is what do you want to build? That is an irritating question if you don’t have an answer for it, but you can’t argue with the logic. You buy a tool to do a job. If you don’t have a goal in mind you don’t need the tool. I have seen so many woodworkers put together a model shop, every tool and I mean every tool beautifully organized and ready for building something but not much is produced. On the other hand there are woodworkers who turn out amazing work with home-made tools or very few tools. Again they specialize and the work is not about the tools but what they want to accomplish. Simply a means to an end. If you don’t decide what you want to accomplish it doesn’t matter what tools you collect. You will just collect tools you better not go pro you will eventually be a generalist who has gone broke.

Because of competition, price and competition will help you get what you really need for the same or less than the cost 20 years ago. Old is not necessarily better or is the newest technology the best buy. It has to be assessed on a tool to tool basis. Stay away from gimmicks and hot items. Use your money for the basics. I have a six hundred dollar dovetail jig on the shelf that I don’t need because I rarely build items needing dovetails, the manual is irritating and I learned to cut them hand. That purchase was made at least 12 years ago when I was a generalist, part-time non-specialized pro.

What do you need?

You have to have a good table saw at least a better contractor’s saw with 1 1/2 HP or better, standard miter slots, t-square fence and a flat solid surface (cast iron or the new granite) top. I would build a crosscut sled and buy an aftermarket miter gauge without too many bells and whistles. Don’t buy the gauge advertised by the slick salesman at the show. I have buyer’s remorse for several show buys in my career. SawStop technology is great if you can afford it. It is arguable that we must afford it from the side of safety.

Buy a good heavy jointer. Everything starts at the jointer. Stock must be square and you better start at the jointer. Six inch is fine but an eight inch makes good sense at today’s prices. But again, What do you want to make? The helical heads and carbide cutters are great if you are going to need almost finished flat, square boards, but you are probably not. You need square boards. Don’t spend the babies milk money on this!

Planers are cheap! The lunch box type for less than $500 is the way to go unless you are running flooring.

Bandsaws are important to me because I use them for ripping, resawing, cutting out patterns and parts and shaping them. I make sculptural chairs so I need a big solid saw. I bought a 20 inch 3 horse Italian beast.

Lathe purchases should be based on what you want to do. You can justify a large lathe if you turn large bowls. You can turn most furniture products with a small lathe. But again if you build bedposts you need …....!

Hand tools are where I spend most of my money. Four or Five times the amount of stationary tools. But you must again know what you want to accomplish and buy the best to a point. My chisels are a mid priced brand they are not the best Japanese steel. My rasps are the best because that is where I need the best.

Don’t go cheap on education, information, safety, light, heat or AC and cleaning the air.

Now I am sixty years old and I have connected with Vladimir in Russia and he anxiously wants to build my rocker. He told me he was a beginning carpenter and was very motivated to achieve. His emails are either translated through software or he speaks and writes some English. On the fourth of July, he emailed me saying” Happy Independence Day!” This was a great moment for me. I learned that the world (as Thomas Friedman said) is virtually flat. People can connect and unite to build those bridges through common interest threads like woodworking. Vladimir and myself are probably more alike than different. How alike I may never know.

Yesterday I received the Vladimir’s pictures of his finished chair and he thanked me for my help.

I was thrilled to have my rocker patterns reach around the globe, but best of all to have an opportunity to make a friend in Russia. Woodworkers and the Internet have helped us join hands and be “Comrades” after all this time.

Hearing Vladimir’s story has helped me realize that a passion for working wood can transcend geographical boundaries and cultural differences and that we have a lot in common no matter where we live. We become inspired to work on a project and research our current questions (thank goodness for the Internet), buy or collect the tools we need or want, select wood that we can afford, retreat to a shop that is always too small, then work through the compromises of victory and defeat until we have made our project a reality.

Now I am sixty years old and I have connected with Vladimir in Russia and he anxiously wants to build my rocker. He told me he was a beginning carpenter and was very motivated to achieve. His emails are either translated through software or he speaks and writes some English. On the fourth of July, he emailed me saying” Happy Independence Day!” This was a great moment for me. I learned that the world (as Thomas Friedman said) is virtually flat. People can connect and unite to build those bridges through common interest threads like woodworking. Vladimir and myself are probably more alike than different. How alike I may never know.

Yesterday I received the Vladimir’s pictures of his finished chair and he thanked me for my help.

I was thrilled to have my rocker patterns reach around the globe, but best of all to have an opportunity to make a friend in Russia. Woodworkers and the Internet have helped us join hands and be “Comrades” after all this time.

Maslow’s revered Hierarchy of Needs has a top level called self actualization. As a productive, professional woodworker I honestly feel I have arrived at this level. I am who I am supposed to be, doing what I do best for people who value my work. More people should be blessed to achieve this level of fulfilment. From a favorite traditional hymn’s lyric, “I was lost but now I’m found.” I get to work with what I have to make one of God’s most beautiful creations into something of form and function. The ideas flow when you work freely with your two hands and are fortunate enough to do it with a sense of trust and not desperation.

When you are confident about your craft and your personal story, I have found that people will listen and ask questions of you concerning every aspect of what you do. You have to mention to people what you do. Very few people make a living as a chair maker. When I am asked about my “job” or volunteer people usually want to know more or they want to tell you about a piece they have from Aunt Gerdie that needs repair, etc. The thrill is you are the rare person in most settings and people will want to connect with you. Connecting with people over something you are passionate about is a thrill.

On 11 AM on Christmas Day past, celebration was interrupted with loading a rocker into an SUV to make a delivery to a local bank president’s family. I had worked nonstop for two to three weeks to finish the rocker as a Christmas present from a father to a daughter’s family. Everybody else was Christmas shopping, wrapping presents, cooking Christmas goodies, but I was in the shop with rasps, scrapers and sandpaper in hand. The muscle memory is easy when you are constantly moving your hand and arm back and forth, back and forth, forth and back, on and on. Why? Why? Why? When I finish this rocker, fortunately I get to craft another one and do this all over again!

My hands have grown gloves. They are rough. They are a purple-lish brown all the time from the walnut. I’ve got a scar running across my palm and an index finger that always feels like it has an electrical current running through it as a reminder of what can happen while working half asleep.

It’s all about your point of view at the time. You have to be able see the big picture, understand what motivates you, knowing that nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice, and that the possibility to achieve only comes when we complete the drill. You also have to work hard at the task at hand, be it sanding, measuring, coming up with a work around, paying the bills, working on the website or planning to connect with someone with enough money and interest to pay you to build one.

Sounds like a great life! Huh? It is not for everybody. I am not an overnight success with the DVD bundle. A good friend explained it to me recently. “You learned your trade one success and one failure at a time for thirty years building furniture. You worked your plan to finish raising a family as a full-time educator while you worked nights building furniture commissions for clients. You retired from one career at the same time you finished the DVD, book and pattern bundle to go with teaching sculptured rocker making at Highland Woodworking. You paid your dues many times over. You finished the drill!”

Sam Maloof told hundreds of woodworkers and want-to-be pros at his workshops that with all his talent, making a living was hard. He said the mailman would eagerly celebrate with him with the coming of a check and despair at delivering the bills. If you have mouths to feed it all becomes real very fast. You have to have support. Meaning there has got to be someone willing to carry your water while you work your plan.

Can you finish the drill? The next post will explain why finishing the drill can be worth it to you!