Most furniture is either overbuilt or underbuilt. Some of it lasts for hundreds of years and requires a forklift to move around the house. Other pieces fall apart during assembly.
So how strong is timber really, and how little of it do you actually need to make a strong chair?
Chairmaker StJohn Starkie builds his chairs as light as he can. To do that, he needs to understand exactly what timber and the joints holding it together can withstand. And there’s one fairly effective way of finding out: test them to destruction.
In this seminar, StJohn will be breaking lots of bits of chairs under load, all his own, to demonstrate just how strong timber is, what happens when it reaches its limits and just how little material you might need to make a strong chair.
It’s a practical and occasionally destructive look at timber, strength and chairmaking from someone who is prepared to break his own work so you don’t have to.
Safety glasses optional.
StJohn is a chairmaker and runs The Quiet Workshop, a dedicated chairmaking and stoolmaking workshop near Cambridge, where he makes chairs and teaches others to build their own.