Finished 'Birth of Mary' Chair

Okay, here's the finished chair.  This is based on a painting done about 1510, by Hans Holbein from what appears to be a series of paintings on the birth of Mary, the mother of Jesus entitled "The First Bath".  It gets a bit confusing about what the actual name of the piece is, so I'll leave that to the art historians.  I started by calling it the 'Birth of Mary' chair, so I'm sticking with that.

Here's the original. (Taken from an on-line art print seller.)

Basically, a friend of mine asked, "Can you make me that chair?".  Of course, I said.  In the main, the chair is fairly straight forward, with the exception of the finial details on the back-posts.  So, I snagged the highest resolution image I could and zoomed in.

At first, I thought the top was faceted, and maybe the sides, after looking closer, I thought it might be smoother, and after drawing it out several ways, I thought that a more smooth approach would fit in with the chair better.

I'll post a "how it was made" entry later since I'm out of time right now.

Here's the finished project.  Hope you like it.  If anyone wants one, it's $375 the way it is.  This is in Cherry, with a split reed woven seat.  The shape can be modified a fair amount and different woods can be used to meet your style or pocketbook.

Finished chair photos courtesy of   Victoria Dye Photography

Turning

Nothing much today, just some turned ware.  The canisters are cherry and are variations based on the Mary Rose findings.  The bowl was a gift and is made from walnut. 

"Modern" medicine

How would you like to use one of these to set a bone?  Yeah, me too.  This is taken from a woodcut that I found in the Mary Rose book "Before the Mast".  It was made for a friend who does a barber-surgeon impression.

It's all made of Ash, with the exception of the long screw, which is hard Maple.  Making the screw was the hardest part.  Not so much technically difficult, but it's physically demanding to cut that much thread into maple.

The finish is milk paint with a tung oil finish coat.  The effect is very similar to period paints.

The woodblock I was working from.  The worst part was trying to get the proportions down.  Look at how long that shin is!

The mechanism.  The two ends are static, with the middle piece moving back and forth along the screw.

Oh, and I was asked how I made the crank handle.  It was pretty simple.  I cut out a place for the spokes.

Then chucked it on the lathe and turned it round.

I cut down the spokes from the original so they wouldn't get in the way all the time.

First run of Glastonbury chairs

These are the first set of Glastonbury chairs I made.  They are all poplar, with a clear finish.

First!

Just a first post.  This blog will be to show the woodworking that I'm doing.

This is one I made for my wife, Victoria.  It is based on a 16th century chair.  The original was in oak and had 3 sets of vertical spindles in the back and had a solid seat.  This one is in ash and has a woven seat.  The big oops on this one is that when I changed the seat from solid to woven, I didn't take into consideration the difficulty in getting the weaving material through the space between the seat and back rungs.  It was... annoying.