by Elia Bizzarri | Jul 6, 2016 | Craft Films | 0 Comments
Sunday in Portland, biking back from the farmer's market with a backpack full of berries, I stumbled upon an Estate Sale. A turn-of-the-century house in a nice neighborhood, full of nice things. Dozens of copper pots, hundreds of beautiful drawings, closets of wool...
by Elia Bizzarri | May 29, 2016 | Finishing, How-To | 0 Comments
Those following my series of posts on milk paint may remember that back in January we painted the first coat of paint on the Continuous Arm Rocker. Paint makes surface defects much more apparent, so let's look and see what we can find: A couple drops of paint on the...
by Elia Bizzarri | May 8, 2016 | Chair Stories | 0 Comments
On Friday I delivered a Continuous Arm Settee to Mark and Leslie in Chapel Hill, NC. They have a modern apartment downtown and wanted a more contemporary chair, so I put cigar-turnings on the settee (like those on Curtis Buchanan's Velda's Chair). My camera blew up,...
by Elia Bizzarri | Apr 21, 2016 | Craft Films | 0 Comments
Filmed in 1954, this video shows a large cooperage in full swing. At this time the cooper's trade had been going uninterrupted for hundreds of years and we are watching the result. These guys move! I suspect chairmaking was once this efficient, but our trade died out...
by Elia Bizzarri | Mar 24, 2016 | Chair Stories, How-To | 0 Comments
Today I turned 103 baby rattles. This may seem a long day, but it's less than a day's work at two and a half minutes each. I've been turning rattles since I was 16. Tom Donahey was the straw-boss at Drew Langsner's volunteer week. At 16 I was the youngest volunteer by...
by Elia Bizzarri | Mar 7, 2016 | Chairmaking Tools and Supplies | 0 Comments
Last week a local tree guy offered me a beautiful Northern Red Oak log, straight, clear, and no twist. He said it was 18" in diameter, which is the first time I can remember anyone underestimating the size of a tree: the butt log was 24" in diameter at the small end....
by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 14, 2016 | Chairmaking Tools and Supplies, Classes | 0 Comments
BEVEL BUDDY Several years ago a student sent me a .PDF file of a template for accurately setting a Sliding T-Bevel to any angle between 0-55 degrees. It was made by Wisconsin chair-maker Steven First, who has generously allowed me to post it on my links page. Similar...
by Elia Bizzarri | Jan 31, 2016 | Finishing, How-To | 0 Comments
I've spent the last two weeks traveling. First, I spent a week up in Jonesborough, TN with my mentor Curtis Buchanan, working on a birdcage barstool and refining our techniques for reaming bent posts. Or more importantly, eating Marilyn's good food and getting a...
by Elia Bizzarri | Dec 16, 2015 | Chair Stories, Classes, Craft Films | 0 Comments
Last week I delivered a set of two Birdcage Side Chairs and two Birdcage Arm Chairs to Cara in Chapel Hill, NC. Here's a story about her chairs: I wiped a spot of spilled hide glue off the workbench as I glued up the last in a set of four birdcage chairs. Reveling in...
by Elia Bizzarri | Dec 13, 2015 | Craft Films | 0 Comments
My friend Bill Anderson just found this incredible film. A fellow and his wife are working outdoors making a chest using an axe, drawkife, hook knife and a few nifty brakes. They split a log into planks and work them down on the shaving horse - I wonder what's the...
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