Rustic Furniture

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The Foxfire Book, Eliot Wiggenton, ed. Anchor Press, New York. The first in the classic series where Georgia teenagers recorded their mountaineer grandparents' almost-forgotten rustic skills. Includes hogdressing, log cabin building, herbal remedies, planting by the signs, making chairs, and more.

Making Rustic Furniture by Daniel Mack. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York. By a New York City maker; also includes examples and projects by other modern masters. A thin hardcover coffee-table book, but by far the most hands-on useful, offering illustrated instructions, step-by-step projects, and how-to by the pros.

Making Twig Furniture & Household Things by Abby Ruoff. Harley & Marks, Vancouver. A largeformat trade paperback showing how to make furniture from thin sticks, plus privacy screens, trash baskets, and other rustic items that ladies made during the 1800s. Unique material on bark and vine baskets and a really neat rustic folding chair.

Peterson Field Guides: Eastern Trees and Western Trees. Houghton-Mifflin. Know your trees. Comprehensive and sturdy enough to hold up to years of in-the-woods use. At your bookstore.

The Northwoods Book Catalog. 1-800-223-6565. From Piragis, the boundary water outfitters, today's best source for most books mentioned above, plus those by Farley Mowatt, Loons, Tom Brown, Moose, Ed Abbey, and about canoeing, hiking, kayaking, camping, and other woodland skills. The book catalog is free with a phone call.

Willow Chair, How to Build Your Very Own by Joseph S. Stone. Genesis Publications, PO Box 1526, Mendocino, CA 95460. Video: How To Make A Willow Rocker by Vic Robertson, PO Box 1921, Shelton, WA 98584. Both explain how to make willow furniture in great text and pictures.

Drying Wand

the dryer a stick gets, the harder it will be. So, cut your poles to rough length,remove tops and unwanted major branches in the woods. Back home, rough-cut excess limbs and twigs. Then, using a sharp knife (I use an X-ACTO modeling scalpel) carefully cut the bark around all limbs and shave stumps so they are smooth and even with the bark. This will save a lot of finishing later.

Just-cut "green" wood is still alive and pliable, which is good for debarking, bending, and hand forming. But it makes for weak furniture till it is well-dried and, as it does dry, it can warp all out of shape. So-called wet joints using differentially dried wood are described below.

There is a product called PEG that replaces the water in green wood and reduces shrinkage and warping. You may read advice to the contrary; I feel that frame wood needs drying. The same brief oven treatment that kills insects will also initiate drying (leave the door open a crack). However, a longer and more thorough drying period is advisable for best results.

I lay large poles flat on the floor in a back room for the winter. I bundle small (rung) sticks in a minihammock made of old onion sacks and suspend them from the ceiling above the wood stove for the heating season. When hanging sticks up to dry, be sure they are evenly supported over their whole length or they will bend and set in a permanent arc shape.) A tree can contain be up to 50% water when alive.

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