A Hand Carved Hickory High Chair

Check out this little high chair.   It's completely handmade--hand carved out of Hickory branches! It is a really fun story,  and it's a fun story to re-tell.

As you may know already,  the business name,  WoodTalkin, was chosen because of the stories pieces, like this little chair's, whisper to us. And they deserve to be listened to.  So bend your ear this direction for just a minute.

 My customer brought this little chair in the door and described how it had been in his family for several generations.  He didn't know who originally fabricated it--perhaps a great grandfather. The issue for them at this particular point in time--the reason he brought it to the shop--was because it was really rickety, unsafe for a child to sit in.  So he asked me to make it safe again.

 Well, as you may know, literally everything I do in the shop boils down to time and materials for work done. And this little chair was going to be a project requiring complete disassembly in order to clean and re-glue all the joints.  That appeared initially an easy enough task to accomplish, and in a reasonable amount of time.  Well so much for 1st blush conclusions.  When I began the task to disconnect the joints and pull the chair apart, I realized all the joints had been pinned with tiny nails. Ugh!

These were "wire nails"--production made.  People began using wire nails--slowly graduating from the use of blacksmith-made steel nails--in the late 1800s. Then they gradually replaced hand made steel nails in the United States and Great Britain.

 I had to carefully locate the nailhead(s) in each joint, dig that little nail head out of its position--enough so that at least I could grab it and pull it out--and then move to the next joint.  And I soon discovered some of the joints had several  embedded nails. So,  I needed to get back on the phone with my customer to let him know how and why  this effort was going to take longer and cost more than any of us had anticipated.  (Ongoing customer collaboration is key to good customer relationships!)

 Having to dig all these little details out of these joints left some nasty scars on the chair (look closely). Each of these little holes then had to be filled and then re-stained to match the surrounding patina, or blend it to compliment it.

 When I was able to start pulling the joints apart, I concluded this wasn't the 1st time these little joints had been re-glued. The glue in these joints was not in every case the old glue one would expect to find in a chair made in the late 1880s.  Some of the joints  appeared to have the old glue, but others were sporting glue contemporary of the past 35 or 40 years. Hmmm. So the chair's joints were probably  "pinned" together in a previous re-glue effort. In fact, the finish  was also unmistakably contemporary. This sweet hand-made highchair had been re-glued and and refinished at some point in the comparatively recent past.

 One of the handmade spindles fitting into the yoke of the seat's back was badly deteriorated. With antiques I don't re-make a spindle and put it in place with the old ones. So,  I removed the spindle from the yoke and cut off the portion that was damaged beyond repair. I placed a new piece of Hickory into the spindle,  glued and shaped it to accommodate both the figure and fit, and reintroduced it into this beautiful hand-carved yoke medly .  Then it was time to re-glue all the pieces and the chair back together. Wow, fun stuff!  

Such a fun little piece.  My customer was happy.  This little beauty is going back home to grand kids. I'm happy!

That's WoodTalkin for today. Thanks for listening. Merry Christmas!

Dick