So…Cormac talked me into making a pair of Glastonbury chairs as a trade for him reconstructing my lamellar body armor.
Glastonbury chairs make my teeth hurt, but I love(d) this body armor. After 30+ years of fighting, it’s hands down the most comfortable and protective body armor I have ever had. I bought it used at a great price and fought in it several times. Then COVID.
While many folks seem to have gained a little weight with the enforced isolation, I have lost weight. A lot of weight, like more than 80 lbs. How? I stopped eating commercial food. I was trying to be careful pre-pandemic, and I was only very slowly losing weight. Being on the edge of the “older” age bracket and diabetic, we took COVID seriously around here. I can work from home; I prefer to be home when I am not working, so being home all the time is in no way a hardship for me.
Jess does all the shopping, and if there’s anything I want from someplace she isn’t going, Amazon will drop it off on my front porch this afternoon. Freaking magic. So, I go out when I must, maybe once a week or 10 days. And, I only eat what Jess brings home or cooks. It’s not like a starvation diet or that she’s a bad cook; she’s not. But it’s tough to consume anywhere near the calories in home-cooked meals as you can in one sitting at Outback. Yeah, it’s not as tasty, but a Blooming Onion is 1900 calories. Also, we don’t fry food at home (except bacon), so it’s hard to make something that “bad.”
I am thinner, and now the body armor doesn’t fit. Hell, it goes around me one and a half times. Sadness. I like being thinner and expect to be a little lighter yet, but not dramatically. Therefore, getting stuff in my current size seems safe. What to do?
There’s no way in hell I am going to disassemble that thousand-piece coat of plates and re-lace it. I am sure I could. But life is too short. I’d rather spend that time making, selling, and using the cash to buy a new one. But there are only a few folks out there making these, and none are to my taste. Plus, I couldn’t interest anyone in buying my slightly used one. Hard to sell armor when the SCA isn’t allowing much fighting.
Hearing of my plight, Cormac offered a solution. He’s made these before, doesn’t hate it, and noticed I make things. Medieval chairs, in fact, offered to rebuild the coat to fit in exchange for a pair of Glastonbury chairs.
Sigh.
I really dislike this style. They are hugely popular, and yet, they are deceptively complex. I made a pair of these in red oak with guidance from Reynard some 15+ years ago, and it was a slog. Obviously, my skills and tools have improved immensely since then, so I thought, “maybe it won’t be as bad this time.” So, we struck a deal. I agreed to make them in poplar, not oak. The result would be lighter, cheaper, and easier to construct. He’d pay the cost of materials and would rebuild the lamellar in exchange.
The time factor was vague. The SCA was back to fighting, but it was Fall, so there was no rush as little happens over the winter. Plus, I found that I could rework my old body armor well enough to work for now. I was also knee-deep in the Prairie-style sofa project. It’s one of my dream pieces that I finally had the skills to execute and the money to afford the appropriate materials (quartersawn white oak). It turned out to take every bit of 4 months to do it, but it turned out great.
Being a little ADD doesn’t help speed projects along. I tend to have the main project and 2 or 3 side projects going at one time. That works for me; there’s always something to do that fits into my time window in the shop. Some days I have 20 minutes, others I have hours. Having various things going on means that something will always fit the time available. I find this means I come to the shop more often as almost any amount of time can yield some productivity. Thought that does mean that all projects take longer (sometimes substantially so) than they could if executed as the sole focus.
The start of the chair project overlapped the sofa project. Since I needed to pick up more QS White Oak for the sofa anyway, I picked up the poplar I needed while I was there. This allowed me to mill up some of the stock when the chance arose. Much of this chair is basic woodworking, straight and square type stuff, so it was a good break from the 80 mortise and tenon joints in the sofa.
So here we are, a pile of parts and chairs to be.
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