Rustic Furniture

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Assembly

When the front and back (or both sides) are prefabricated and nailed up or friction fastened (but not glued) and when rungs are cut and tenoned, do a dry trial assembly. I like to block up and tape or tie nailed-up pieces together with easy on, easy off tape that won't pull off the bark. When it all looks square, I pilot drill all nail holes and tap in the nails. After that, any wobbles are cured by cutting diagonals and nailing them on.

In mortise and tenon pieces, you can rotate sticks holding backs or legs in their sockets to get the right angle and move pegs or tenons in and out of mortise holes to get it all square and level. Mark tenon depth before pulling joints apart—one at a time and adding glue. Then, tap joints home, going around and around the piece till all are firm. Finally, secure pegs or tenons with small nails.

Preventing the Wobbles

Good design, stout poles, and sound joints will eliminate "the shakes" Wobbles are another problem. Four-legged furniture will be unstable if one of its supports varies from the plane defined by the other three by even a fraction of an inch. The legs—even of the same tree species, age, and size, and even if carefully dried—will tend to shrink and swell, warp, twist, and set slightly different directions as humidity changes with the seasons. A handmade chair's individually formed joints will oppose the movement of sticks, exposing the structure to widely varying stresses. As a result, that chair, whose leg ends you went around and round, carefully filing so they all sat fiat and even on the floor, will invariably begin to wobble. Wobbling under the weight of even a wiggling little kid stresses joints, strains junctions, and stretches seating so everything begins to loosen up, and in time the chair will be a creaking, shaking, wobbling wreck.

You can set the piece on its best three legs and shim the fourth. Or cheat as I do and cut a half-inch off the bottom of the shortest leg and drill a 3/8 x 1" hole up into the cut end. In the hole I epoxy-glue the threaded sleeve of a common hardware store 7/8" adjustable leveler and screw it in or out as needed as a wobble cure.

On the other hand, a triangle is the most stable artificial shape we can impose on nature. You can make giant-sized threelegged milking stools. Add backs and call them chairs, or add tops and call it them tables. You can find plenty of trees where the crown branches out into three or more legs that offer a ready-made base. If branches are so thin they bend under load, connect them for mutual support with buttnailed or mortised stretchers, wire, or twisted vine.

Preventing Damage

The finish measures described below will deter wood beetles and termites. You are on your own in protecting delicate twig work from raucous children. I've never known a rustic furniture leg that suffered inordinately from become a cat's scratching post. An application of tung oil will cure any damage. Some cats and most puppies will chew it up if permitted. I find that they are discouraged by an application of a thin, gloppy mixture of a little flour or arrowroot in water and ground white cayenne pepper. It dries quickly, doesn't show, and works if kept fresh till the permanent teeth are in.

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