Campaign Chairs – Oak – 2018

For the occupying power who wants to do it in style.  Campaign chairs were a product of the British in India, when officers needed all the accouterments of glamping to keep the wheels of the empire churning.  They also make a lot of sense for the particular ebbs and flows of my life which seems to require breaking everything down and shlepping it to a new flat every three years or so.  The campaign chair is basically tensioned by the weight of your tush, which makes disassembling a breeze.  A couple of years ago David and Brian made a set of campaign chairs for my shop, to fill two roles, first a place to retreat in those moments when the shop is more a place of solitude than a workshop, and secondly under the fanciful hopes that Revati would brave the sharp edges and general disorder to witness it in action

At this point I am going to pass the torch to Brian (his voice in italics)– so he can recount the build

When Matt and Revati got married I’d like to say that we came up with an original gift idea but that wouldn’t exactly be true. Matt had already expressed interest in the Campaign Chairs (Schwartz), I finished earlier that year. His rationale was that he wanted a comfy chair for Revati to read in while he was working in the shop. David and I thought the campaign chairs would be great as it would give Revati the perfect place to hang out in Matt’s shop, they would be easily shared and could be used for glamping.

 

What we didn’t expect was how difficult it would be to do a joint project over multiple months on different sides of the country. All told, we worked on this project in 5 different shops in 3 cities with 3 cross-country flights.  All of this meant we were at least 9 months late in completing the chairs. As is the case with many gifts for Matt, the chairs were received mostly finished, allowing him the “joy” of finishing.

Portland in the Old Kerby St shop: I started the project in my old shop when I still had a table saw. I was initially leaning towards oak but came across a fantastic, reasonably priced ash and liked the contrast with the leather on the original chair. The milling of the board was a straight forward process as the chair is just 8 sticks connected with leather. The sticks were packed up into a bag that was gathered by Dave and brought to our Dad’s shop in Ontario.

 

Gananoque, Ontario Shop: For my first campaign chair, I cut square mortise and tenon joints by hand which was a time-consuming albeit enjoyable process. The angle of the joints allows them to tighten when you sit on them. For the new set, David found the Veritas tapered tenon cutter and a tampered reamer which made for much quicker joinery. He and my dad used the reamer to cut the mortises with some difficulty. Without a lead screw, the reamer on a brace is not nearly as forgiving as a typical bit. They painstakingly lined up and attempted to bore square straight holes, with mixed results.

  

Matt and Dave’s Old Shop – Washington DC: David brought the chairs to DC where he shaped the stretchers with a spokeshave and drawknife. I believe Matt was unaware of the project at this point, so he snuck around him for a few work sessions. Though he did not finish the shaping before a trip to Portland which allowed him to once again fly all the pieces back west.  That allowed me to fit them with the leather.

Portland in the New Kerby st Shop: This was one of my first projects in the new shop after my workbench was complete. The leatherwork came together quickly with some slight adjustments from the previous chair for both comfort and strength. This includes adding more rivets to the backrest and widening the armrests. The leather was sourced from the fantastic Oregon Leather Company. My final task before a trip to Philly was to continue David’s shaping of the chairs and get them as close to presentable as possible.

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Philadelphia in Matt’s old Shop: As is customary, I arrived on Matt’s doorstep with an unfinished albeit functional gift. It’s uncertain if Matt appreciates being able to take some credit for finishing gifts, I’m going to pretend like he does. With the leather and joinery complete Matt needed to focus on finishing the shaping that I had started as well as the scraping, sanding, and staining of the chairs.

David and I have a way of making a relatively simple project much more complicated. I like to think that a chair that’s designed to be transported in a moment’s notice deserved to be completed in multiple cities and shops. Hopefully, the chairs will lead to many more comfortable trips across the country or round out a seating area in Matt and Reveti’s future dream shop.