with Drew Langsner

This class is our best introduction to the skills needed for any type of traditional chairmaking. The elegant ladderback has been described by woodworking author and editor John Kelsey as a “masterpiece of economy and simplicity, of comfort, strength and beauty.”
During this course students make a bent-back, double-slat, post-and-rung chair. The session begins with riving billets from a freshly felled, straight grain red oak log. Cylindrical wet/dry mortise and tenon joinery is explained in theory and then put to practical application. Students learn to shape the chair parts using a drawknife and spokeshave while seated at a shaving horse (or our “shaving mule”) and then steaming and bending the back posts, using bending forms. Tenons are formed at the ends of ‘bone dry’ rungs. Mortises (round for the rungs, and rectangular for the slats) are bored or chiseled in the air-dried posts.
After the chair frame is assembled, back slats are rived and shaved, heated in boiling water, and then fit into slat mortises in the rear posts. The chair is completed by weaving a seat with colorful Shaker tape.
Tuition for the 5 day winter tutorials (limited to 4 students) is $975. Tuition for the 6 day June workshop is $800. Tuition includes use of specialized chairmaking tools, materials (for the chair frame and Shaker tape seating,) room and board.

Back to Class Schedule

Country Workshops Home Page

E-mail:
Drew Langsner
Phone:
828-656-2280 (M-F, 9-6 Eastern time)