Spring Sale!

Four wonderful Weekender Chairs on sale. $250 each. These were previously used as floor displays at The Center For Maine Craft in Gardiner, Maine. As you can see they are in excellent condition. Call today (207) 351-6966 for a test drive!

Winter Craft Fair - Kennebunk

The 35th Annual School Around Us Craft Fair will take place at Kennebunk High School on Saturday, November 13th from 9 to 3. I will have plenty of "Walden Walkers" walking sticks available as well as selected pieces from my "Shakerondack" furniture collection. It's all for a good cause, so come on down! Hope to see you there.!

Lisa's Chairs

I am quite please with the way these chairs turned out. No paint here. Lisa prefers to let the premium, hand-selected white oak to shine through. Three applications of Watco's Exterior oil finish should provide protection against the against the severe ocean climate where they will reside. As with my painted chairs, I do recommend covering your Weekenders when not in use for extended periods. Customers have highly recommended the Adirondack chair covers available through Plow and Hearth. They fit and have an elastic drawstring to close them up tight.

Annual Bahhhn Sale

My Annual Bahhhn Sale is now scheduled for November 20th and will be advertised far and wide in The Forecaster on the week before. You can expect to see several floor model Weeekender Chairs, Walden Walkers walking sticks, assorted rustic furniture as well as my rather large collection of gently used paperbacks. All will be sold at bargain basement prices. No reasonable offer will be refused. I must be crazy. Stay tuned for photos of inventory and updates as we get closer to November. Note: the two chairs shown are available for $295 each.

Home Again

These two Weekender chairs have just returned from hard duty at the West Gardiner Service Plaza of the Maine Turnpike. Considering the use and abuse they've sustained over the past three months I am impressed and proud of their outstanding performance. They are still rock solid and look as good as they did on the day they were "born". Welcome home amazing chairs!

Upcoming Events

In their July 2010 issue, Down East Magazine named us "Best Adirondack Chair Maker in Maine." And we've been working to fill orders non stop ever since. There's still plenty of summer left, so pick up the phone and place your order today. And remember, it's never to early to get a jump start on next summer. I'll be building Weekender chairs right through the winter. Now here's a word or two on some upcoming events:

I'll be at the Center For Maine Craft in Gardiner, Maine demonstrating rustic chair making on August 28 from 10-1pm. http://www.mainecrafts.org/ FMI.

I'll be selling my Walden Walkers Walking Sticks at the Labor Day Craft Show on September 4 from 9-2pm. http://www.mainecrafts.org/ FMI.

I'll be exhibiting by invitation at the Rustic Furniture Fair at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, NY on September 11 and 12. http://www.adirondackmuseum.org/ FMI.

Come on out and see us! Sit a spell and talk about the weather.

Break Time!

How does that old saying go? "Sometimes I sit and think. And sometimes I just sit." Today I just sit.

Two For The Road

Weekenders in "Apple Green" and "Clearest Ocean Blue" catching some rays before heading up to Gardiner, Maine on Friday, 6/22. They will be available for your relaxing pleasure at the Center For Maine Craft located at the Turnpike Service Plaza. Bring a beverage, bring your laptop. Take a test rest. Let me know what you think!

Works In Progress

These two Weekenders are almost complete. Install seat slats. Cut and sand bungs. Final coats of finish. Then they will be ready for delivery to The Center For Maine Craft at the service plaza in Gardiner, off Maine Turnpike Exit 51. I would like to kindly invite you to stop by and say hello. They will be for sale, so if you fall in love while sitting, you can take them home and enjoy them on your own front porch or deck or dock or great room for that matter. Or if you would like a different color give me a call. I am forever building more, more, more.

Painting Chair Parts

I just finished brushing on the 2nd coat for some 60 or so "Weekender" chair parts. Painting is one of those relaxing jobs where the mind is allowed to wander with minimal potential for drastic consequences. Have I painted my hand more than once? Sure. Spilled a whole quart of expensive paint? You bet. Tracked said expensive paint into the house? Absolutely. Still there's something so sweetly rewarding about being surrounded by a bundle of freshly painted chair parts. I know I am getting near the end of another craftsman's journey. I am close to completing another set of Weekender chairs. Soon somebody is going to have some of my Fresh Art on their lawn or patio. It doesn't get much better than this, does it?

Now Showing!

"Iris" and "Crocus" will be appearing at Kennebunkport Arts gallery of fine craft in Dock Square beginning on June 19th. Stop by and check them out. Relax. Sit a spell and, if the spirit moves you, you can order two for yourself. Just give me a call to get the process started. (207) 351-6966.

Final Coat

We have applied the final of three coats of Ben Moore's finest to Kay and Jim's Weekender Chairs. A couple of days to cure and we'll be ready for delivery. I think about all the good times and stories these chairs will witness over many Maine summers to come. It's been another great journey. Tomorrow we'll be starting a brand new project. I can hardly wait.

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in....

There are 64 countersunk screws in each chair, and every single one of them will need to be plugged. It's a long job, but somebody's got to do it. It's the price I pay, the investment I make, to ensure my chairs are weather-tight. I start by cutting my own oak plugs on the drill press. A little dab of glue on each plug and we fill the hole. Once the glue is dry it's a matter of cutting away the excess plug and paring it flush to the surface with a sharp chisel. Now we're ready for final sanding and a coat of primer. We'll apply two coats of Ben Moore's finest exterior acrylic over the weekend. Then Kay and Jim's chairs will be ready for delivery. Just in time for early spring lounging.

Final Assembly

It's always a good feeling when the pieces all fit! The seat planks require some minor adjustment. Then all will be screwed down tight, countersunk and plugged. The plugs will be cut flush and sanded. Then it will be off to the paint room for a coat of primer and two coats of Ben Moore's high quality exterior acrylic. By then we will have worked up quite a thirst. I can't wait to sit back in our completed Weekender Chair and enjoy the first lemonade of the year.

Island

There's nothing like some "fresh art" to lift your spirits. This is a painting Jordan did on a 36" by 24" piece of hardboard. It's called "Island". Jordan is my alter ego. He puts my left over chair paint to good use. Trouble is he's always getting under foot. I'm trying to get these chairs built but he keeps hogging my shop with his "fresh art".

Making Chair Parts

The last couple of days I have been making chair parts. I sort through my milled oak looking for appropriate sizes to fashion the chair's foundation: legs, arms and braces. The parts are cut using a combination of freehand band saw work and miter saw. The miter saw helps me to cut the many precise angles called for in the design. Once the parts are cut and sanded, I "dry fit" the pieces to make sure everything lines up. So far luck is on my side. We have tight fitting joints all around. Tomorrow we head into the assembly phase.

Milling

Once I've determined how much lumber I'll be needing, I cut the 8' long boards to approximate length and head to the Jointer. This is where the milling operation starts. Our goal is to get our rough oak boards flat, square and uniform in thickness. The Jointer will yield stock that is flat on one face and one edge, and those sides come together at a perfect 90 degree angle. I then run the jointed boards through the planer flat face down. This will give me boards with two flat faces parallel to one another and square to the jointed edge. I will then rip these boards to finished width and clean up the edge on the jointer. Now that I have my oak flat and square, we're ready to make chair parts!

Watch Me Build!

We started a new project last weekend. Two custom chairs for Kay and Jim. I've had many folks ask me about the whole process, so I thought it would be fun to blog as I build. You can come along if you'd like. Kay and Jim wanted me to replicate a set of their favorite Adirondacks. The originals, built by a local carpenter had provided years of service but had started to breakdown.

Inevitably water finds it's way into screw holes and the wood starts to rot. I hope to rectify the problem with improved joinery techniques and by using a fine water-tight hardwood: white oak. The process begins with a plan. I took measurements of all the chair components and recorded the back angle and seat slope. Then it was off to my wood pile to select and mill our boards.

For this project I will be using 5/4 stock, rough sawn and will mill it to a thickness of 1" for the frame components. I have also have 4/4 stock to be milled to 3/4" for the seat and back slats.

"Catch A Wave

and you're sittin' on top of the world..." Love that old Beach Boys song. Here's one of my latest designs. I call it "The Wave". It's got the same comfortable pitch as my Weekender chair but with a bit more flair. As I write, we have 30 degrees of Fahrenheit, with wind chills in the low 20's. Welcome to spring in Maine. But it won't be long now. Summer's on the way. The folks will be opening up their cottages and returning to the beaches. The surf will indeed be up and you'll be sitting on top of your world. Catch a Wave chair today and you can enjoy summer all year long.

Paint It Black

I made these chairs for Rob Henry. He has has a camp on Peak's Island in Casco Bay. He was pretty cool about the design, giving me full artistic control except for the color. "I don't care what they look like but I need to have them painted black." You know what they say about the customer always being right. I think in this case, Rob hit a home run.