Coppiced Welsh ash and the cadair gefnffon

A chair made of sticks, honestly

The Welsh stick chair belongs to farmhouse kitchens and chapel vestries across Gwynedd and well beyond, built by country joiners from what the woodlot and the hedgerow offered. The name cadair gefnffon points at its heart: a back made of sticks. There are no screws and no glue blocks. Every joint is wood driven into wood and held by the way timber moves as it dries. We follow that logic strictly, because it is why these chairs are still in use two centuries later.

Wood from the coppice

Our ash comes from coppiced woodland a few miles from Betws-y-Coed. A coppice stool is cut to the ground every fifteen to twenty-five years and regrows as a cluster of straight poles. That suits chair parts better than a single tall tree: the grain runs true, there is no spiral, and there are few knots. We fell in winter, when the sap is down, and bring the poles to the yard the same week. Legs and spindles are cleft green, because wood split along its grain is stronger than wood sawn across it.

Ash dieback has changed the picture. The fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus is killing ash across Wales, and much of what we buy now comes from stands where felling was already unavoidable. We use it well, and where owners agree we replant with mixed natives: hazel, oak and rowan.

Pole lathe and drawknife

Spindles are turned on a pole lathe. A springy pole overhead, a cord wrapped round the work and a treadle underfoot do the job of a motor. Press the treadle and the work spins toward you while the chisel cuts. Lift the foot and the pole pulls the work back while the tool is clear. It is slower than a motor and quieter than a kettle, and it leaves a surface that has been cut cleanly rather than torn.

Legs begin as cleft billets on the shaving horse, where a drawknife brings them to an octagon. First the billet is squared, then each corner is taken off to a gauge line. The octagon is more than decoration. Eight facets give the eye a straight reference and make it easy to keep a tapered leg true as it is worked round.

Steam-bent crests

The crest rail, the curved top of the back, is bent from straight-grained ash. We steam it in a timber box fed by a kettle for about an hour for every inch of thickness, then bend it round a former in under a minute, before it cools and stiffens. A steel strap held against the outside face stops the fibres tearing. The rail stays on the former for two days and is released only when it has dried to the curve.

Wedged through-tenons

The seat is saddled from a thick plank, hollowed with an adze and shaped with a travisher until it fits the sitter. The legs pass right through it, so the ends show on top, which is part of the chair’s character.

Tenons are dried hard before assembly while the seat blank is still a little damp. As the seat dries it shrinks around the tenon and clamps it. A saw kerf is cut across the tenon end, across the seat’s grain, and a dry hardwood wedge is driven in. The wedge pushes along the fibres rather than between them, so the plank does not split. Done properly, the joint tightens for decades.

Commissioning a chair

Each chair is made to order, usually as a set. Tell us the heights of the sitters and the table, and whether the chair will live on flagstones, boards or carpet. Lead times and the steps are in the commissioning guide. If you want to see how ash behaves before you decide, come and handle some at the workshop.