Any rustic furniture makers aboard?

[Kernopelli]

Just curious if anyone else is into making rustic furniture. I started making willow ("twig") furniture about 20 yrs ago. I used to sell willow coffee and end tables, variety of chairs, baskets, coat trees, porch swings, settees, etc. It was surprisingly good "sideline" money and I would sell most of it through local craft shops. These days if I can find the motivation, I just do it for fun and give it away as gifts.

Lately, I mostly make tables cut from oak and cedar, some I'll carve from whole pieces (i.e, top and legs are cut from one piece) and some are 5-6" crosscut slabs with legs usually made from peeled limbs. I have found that carved pumpkins are very popular, especially this time of year. I have started doing a little carving and recently purchased 12" and 16" Cannon carving bars....but I still suck. Maybe someday, I can graduate past pumpkins and bears.

Anyone other TBN'ers doing anything similar?

 

[Gary51]

I've never done any of this, but always wanted to. Would love to see some pics of your work. May motivate me to actually do it.

 

[tommu56]

I saw a cabin a week or so ago with woven branch balusters (about 1-1 1/2") and though it would be neat to do that at my place but I haven't done even given it a though about it till your post.


tom

 

[Erik_in_Hoyt]

I don't do chainsaw art, but do other forms of rough sawn and rustic furniture.
(benches, sheds, adirondak chairs, end tables, etc...)
best source of wood I've found is a trailer manufacturer - he uses rough sawn green white oak for his decking and gave me a literal ton of reject boards when I was picking up a trailer from him. this stuff is great as is, or can be trued up with table saw and planer for some very nice looking finished lumber.

 

[studor]

I don't do the chainsaw carving thing but I do make railings and furniture from spotted aspen and birch.I bought a little book on rustic furniture about twenty years ago and a couple of different sizes of tapered dowel cutters and just started making stuff -- some good, some highly tooled firewood I did make all the stair railings in our cabin from birch that I stripped the bark from and sanded very smooth with a flap wheel on the grinder
I do some carving with a chainsaw type blade in a disk grinder and flapwheels. I recently saw some interesting furniture at Bass Pro that looked rustic but was basically using logs sawn in half as veneers on plywood strucures. Might try to make a chest of drawers that way this winter if I get the time

 

[Kernopelli]

Someone posted they wanted to see some pics.

Various pics of things I made when I first started about 20 yrs ago. I have tons of newer stuff...much more variety and better craftsmanship, just didn't want to dig out the albums tonight. The oak table is a newer piece, I also like to carve the legs and top together from one piece. The other pics are of misc willow items that sold well, tables, fern stand, baskets, doll cradle, (I make many styles of adult chairs and this pic is a bad example of) an adult chair, 2 children's chairs ( very popular, I love the red willow harvested in winter), bird house etc.

 

[tommu56]

studor

Do you have the name of the book or the author?

tom

 

[Gary51]

Impressive looking stuff right there. What are you using to hold the willow pieces together? Nails,screws?

 

[forgeblast]

What do you use to seal them?

 

[studor]

Do you have the name of the book or the author?

The book is called Rustic Carpentry edited by Paul M.Hasluck -- first published in 1907
I think you can still buy it at Lee Valley Tools here in Canada but I do not know where you can get it in the U.S.