I am not a visual learner. DVDs (and to some degree personal instruction) have always been frustrating for me because I like to speed things up, slow things down or stop dead in my tracks and think when I learn a new task.
That’s why I like books and seem to learn best from them.
But I’ve come to the conclusion that a fair percentage of the population prefers video. And so I have agreed to work with Popular Woodworking Magazine on a third DVD this year, this one on how to build the staked chair from “The Anarchist’s Design Book.”
The gist of the DVD is how to get started in building chairs without a lot of chairmaking tools. Many woodworkers are intimidated by the materials, tools and geometry needed to build their first chair. This DVD (and the book, by the way) seek to show you how to get started mostly with tools you already have. And to remove all math and numbers from the angles.
We begin shooting the DVD on Monday, and so I am preparing parts for two chairs that we’ll be building during the week. We’ll be bending wood without a steambox, making legs and spindles minus the traditional green woodworking tools, and we’ll be making seats without an adze, inshave or travisher.
I also hope we’ll have time to show how to use a soap finish – but no promises on that.
If all goes to plan, the DVD (and streaming video) will be released by Popular Woodworking Magazine in early summer. This most likely is the last DVD I’ll do for 2016. I have a sketchbook full of designs that is making me crazy – I’m staring at some drawings for a staked sitting bench that I simply have to build. Oh, and “Woodworking in Estonia” and “Roubo on Furniture” are also up on my screen.
Crap, it’s almost 11 a.m. and I have holes to bore.
— Christopher Schwarz