Commonly a felled tree is taken to the sawmill and sawn into boards which are left to dry before being used. Working green wood is different: the tree is not sawn but split into the required sections and worked while the wood is still "green" and soft. In our case traditional hand tools are used to shape the chair parts, some of which are then left to dry while other parts are kept wet. We use the natural shrinkage of those wet parts to create exceptionally tight joints in the assembled chair. Glue is not necessary. Splitting rather than sawing results in stronger, longer-lasting and characteristically irregular chair as the natural grain of the timber is followed by the splitting rather than cut across by the saw. Because of this strength, pre-1914 British Government contracts specified that only split timber be used for tent pegs, ladder rungs and chair parts. Our approach is based on the techniques of traditional chair-makers. Like them we split and work the timber green with simple hand tools. Our joints, however, are made using modern workshop methods which guarantee durability and accuracy. In this way we preserve the characteristics of the tree. Irregularities and curves become part of the finished chair rather than being discarded, so each chair is unique. The end result is a strong, elegant light-weight chair which is sympathetic to our forest resource - a 25 year-old tree produces more than 25 chairs.
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Above:
Jan Saltet