How to Build Your Own Bentwood Chair: A Guide to Building and Selling Rustic Furniture

By Wallace Eadie

How to Build Your Own Bentwood Chair is an introductory guide for those who want to master the art of rustic furniture making and learn how to sell their creations, either as a hobby or full time business. This book covers environmentally safe ways to collect material, economical ways to collect tools, and simple methods to set up a workshop. It gives detailed instructions with images for building a bentwood chair as well as general tips that are helpful for any rustic furniture project, including finishes and maintenance.

The skills learned from this book can be applied to many rustic furniture projects, whether it be chairs, love seats, plant stands, benches, arbors, garden furniture, beds, or household furniture.

How to Build Your Own Bentwood Chair has two chapters dedicated to those who may want to earn part or full-time income through their new-found skills.

Wallace Eadie is married and has three grown children. He worked for several years as a Probation Officer in Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada. During that time, he began building rustic furniture as a hobby, which developed into a part-time, and eventually a full-time business with his son, Jordan. He now has 16 years experience building bentwood and log furniture including giving instructional classes. His furniture can be found in ski resorts, hotels, bed and breakfast establishments, and private homes across western Canada.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462010561

Wallace Eadie

Wallace lives with his wife, Judy, in Revelstoke, a mountain ski resort town. He likes snowshoeing and hiking. His love and appreciation of nature naturally attracted him to creating rustic and log furniture. He feels that in our human made world people long for contact with the natural environment and its Creator, and as a result they are being drawn to the comforting and inspiring artistic expressions of the natural world, including rustic furniture. “Sitting on a bentwood or log chair brings us back in contact with the creative beauty and design found in nature. Detachment from nature and the environment is not good for us mentally and physically. The expression of the natural beauty of nature through rustic furniture is a benefit to us all.”

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Copyright © 2011 by Wallace Eadie

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Disclaimer: This publication is designed to provide accurate information in regard to the subject matter covered. Instructions and other material in this publication are thoroughly checked. However, no warranty, either expressed or implied, is made, nor are successful results guaranteed. The writer disclaims liability for untoward results or accidents.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1055-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1056-1 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011906643

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 4/28/2011

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Ten Ways Rustic Furniture Helps the Earth

Chapter 2

How to Get Free Wood

Chapter 3

How to Get Free Equipment

Chapter 4

The Thrifty Workshop

Chapter 5

Making a Bentwood Chair

Chapter 6

Building a Simple Fan Chair

Chapter 7

Custom Finishes and Maintenance

Chapter 8

Turn Your Skill into Income

Chapter 9

Turn Your Skill Into a Business

Lets Hear From You!

Introduction

This book promotes responsible collecting of pruned branches from non endangered species on private or public lands where permission has been obtained from all relevant authorities, and in a manner that ensures no despoiling of wilderness and no danger of harvesting plants to scarcity.

Twig harvesting is not a woodlot equivalent of strip-mining, overgrazing or clear cutting. No trees are cut down. Pruned willows, for example, renew immediately, and even cut limbs jammed into earth will sprout roots and flourish as new trees.

Twig harvesting for furniture, tools and housing has been in practice virtually worldwide since the beginning of human history and represents an ancient, ecologically sensitive method of gathering building materials from fast-growing bog shrubs. Native Americans and Canadians developed many medicinal and technological applications for willow roots and shoots.

Role of pioneer species in forest cycles

I checked with the British Columbia Forest Service who explained that forests go through a normal cycle of growth, decay, and renewal, whether by selective harvesting or by natural purging through forest fires, disease, and insects. After a fire, for example, the first species to come back (called the pioneer species) are leafy deciduous trees like maples, willows, birches, aspens and poplars. Through a natural process these shorter-lived trees will eventually die out and be replaced by conifers (evergreens), which slowly mature over a period of 200 years and more. Then the cycle starts all over again. Thus the harvesting of willows and other leafy shrubs is not in any way harmful to environmental balance. In fact, a common forest management practice involves thinning out pioneer species to permit faster growth of conifers.

Twig furniture offers a unique opportunity to learn about the plants and animals coexisting in a bioregion and to collect fallen deadwood and pruned branches with a sense of responsibility to that region.

Study field guides for your area

Dozens of tree field guides and willow reference books are available, most featuring full-color photos, highly-detailed line drawings, and helpful identification tips. Your local library is the best place to start looking. Read and compare several guides, then buy the one you find most helpful for your area. Photocopy (make sure you are not violating copyrights) relevant pages and forestry materials, hole-punch them and store along with this book and authorizing documents in your portable office binder. Take your binder along with you in the car with your tools, ready for action.

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if only we will tune in. --George Washington Carver

Chapter 1

Ten Ways Rustic Furniture Helps the Earth

1. Rustic furniture utilizes an overlooked and underused