Enrollment for this class opens Sunday December 28th at 9 am. All spots are filled in order of receipt. Please email peter@petergalbert.com to enroll. Tuition is $2100, deposit due upon enrollment is $1050

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Contemporary Appalachian style rocking chair that incorporates all aspects of chair building. The class focuses on hand tool skills and green woodworking techniques.

This seven-day class course will take you, step-by-step, through the process of hand crafting a Contemporary Applachian style ladderback rocking chair. It will cover every aspect of making a ladderback style chair, beginning with lumber selection, chairmaking tools, hand shaping parts, working with compound angles, all the way through final assembly. Concentration will be on the making of a strong chair joint. The building of this chair will be primarily with hand tools but will involve the use of some machine tools. The seat will be woven in either Shaker tape or split reed.

Overall dimensions: 36”D x 23”W x 42”H

LEARN HOW TO

Use hand tools: drawknife, spokeshave, and scraper

Selecting material, lay out parts from lumber

Steam-bending

Wet/dry joinery

Layout and drill compound angles

Seat weaving

Pillars of a strong joint

Grain direction

Moisture content

Straight grain

David Douyard is an internationally recognized chairmaker, He builds contemporary and traditional Windsor and ladderback chairs in his shop in northwest Connecticut. He started as an apprentice to a New York furniture maker and later had more formal training at Palomar College, studying furniture making and design. He moved from furniture into building chairs more than 20 years ago having studied under several Windsor and ladderback chairmakers. He has been awarded Top Artisan by Early American Life magazine several times and has several of his Windsor chairs featured in the magazine. He was awarded Editor’s Choice Award for Seating for a Windsor Sack Back Settee by Popular Woodworking and was recognized by The Society of American Period Furniture Makers. David has a video teaching series with Fine Woodwprking Magazine. He has showcased his work at the Smithsonian Craft Fair, Mystic Seaport Museum and been featured at the Lost Trades Fair in Victoria, Australia.