by Elia Bizzarri | Mar 16, 2018 | Antique Chairs | 2 Comments
My girlfriend Morgan and I went to an estate sale last weekend that had several early 19th C. Windsors, including this settee. I love looking at old chairs - there's so much to learn. It's pretty big, 60 or 70" wide. The seat is too deep for comfort...
by Elia Bizzarri | Jan 10, 2018 | Chairmaking Tools and Supplies, How-To | 5 Comments
Nearly any wood will work for a Windsor chair seat. It depends on how much work you are willing to do and how heavy a chair you want to move every time you finish dinner. I refuse to use anything but the highest quality and most easily worked materials available. In...
by Elia Bizzarri | Oct 29, 2017 | Chairmaking Tools and Supplies, Chairs For Sale, Finishing, How-To | 6 Comments
The viscosity of milk paint directly affects the ease with which the paint can be applied and the smoothness of the painted surface. True milk paint only comes in powered form and must be mixed with water before use ("pre-mixed" milk paints are really acrylic...
by Elia Bizzarri | Oct 8, 2017 | Classes, How-To | 0 Comments
I prefer to size stretcher tenons with a Turner's Gate (Sorby calls it a Sizing Tool). It's major advantage over dowel plates and tenon cutters is that the tenon shoulder can be easily removed using a skew, plus the tenons are always in line with each other. A...
by Elia Bizzarri | Aug 24, 2017 | Chairmaking Tools and Supplies, How-To | 7 Comments
Green wood is everywhere. In fact, dry wood doesn't usually exist in nature: trees are veritable pipes full of water and once they die the rotting process is fed by water. Yet finding green wood can be a daunting task for many modern woodworkers. Where to look? What...
by Elia Bizzarri | Jul 23, 2017 | Chairmaking Tools and Supplies, Craft Films, Finishing | 2 Comments
My Popular Woodworking Milk Paint DVD has just come out. While many paints hide the wood's subtle surface quality or create a plastic looking finish, milk paint is an incredibly thin, natural-looking paint that allows every pore of the wood and every tool mark...
by Elia Bizzarri | Jun 18, 2017 | How-To | 0 Comments
You've got your hands on some green wood. How do you store it? If your winter stays below 40 or 50 degrees, take your time, it will probably keep fresh till spring. However, with several recent warm winters, rot seems to be becoming a year round event here in...
by Elia Bizzarri | May 23, 2017 | Classes, How-To | 0 Comments
A couple months ago I filmed an Octagonal Side Table DVD and a Milk Painting DVD with Popular Woodworking. They should be out sometime this summer. Here's a photo of the table: To film a DVD you need lots of parts at various stages, so I made a pile of bent...
by Elia Bizzarri | May 10, 2017 | Craft Films, Finishing | 0 Comments
This video was made by the fellow I buy my shellac flakes from. Who knew it took so much effort by insect and man to make a pound of shellac? Or that different trees make different kinds of shellac? Now I feel bad for spilling the stuff.
by Elia Bizzarri | Apr 23, 2017 | Classes, How-To | 0 Comments
Curtis Buchanan and I spent some time carving spoons last January. I photographed his process, which he describes as "the way a chairmaker with bad elbows carves a spoon." Or something like that. He carves the bowl first. This is steam bent cherry....
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