Making a Roorkee chair with Laura

Two years ago Laura started making a Roorkee chair in the workshop.
She hasn't lived at home all the time, so getting the chair completed has taken a little more time than originally planned.

Before going back to sea this time, I asked her if we shouldn't try to make it a goal to complete the chair so she could bring it with her as she was moving to go to university.

She agreed and we found all the parts from the chair.
We were pleasantly surprised to find out that she had completed the turnings of the legs, so the only woodwork left was to turn the stretchers, drill some holes and make some tenons and finally do a little bit of work on the back pieces and round over the top of the legs.

The wood used were some scraps of whitebeam that I had left, and while it isn't a particularly beautiful species with elegant grain, it sure is the most sturdy species I know of. So there should be very little chance of the stretchers breaking on this chair.
Laura liked that the wood was so uniformly white and pale, so when we started talking about what leather to use, she decided on the plastic coated candy apple red leather that I once got from my dad.
It is originally from clogs production, so that is why the plastic coating is on it.

Her thoughts about the contrasting leather is that very often in kindergarten, chairs would have a contrasting seat or leg etc. to create some visual interest for the children, and she thought that it would be fun to make the chair stand out a bit more compared to using veg tan leather for the straps etc.

I didn't have enough of the red leather to make a seat and a back from it, but she wanted those parts to be made out of canvas anyway, so the leather was only going to be straps and armrests.

We helped each other with the seat and back, and I instructed Laura in how to do the riveting which was needed for mounting all the buckles to the straps.
In very short time she became really good at it, and the for each piece that was completed, the chair looked more and more like it should.

Once it was all assembled Laura was thrilled, and the chair looked just like she had imagined.
Again I was amazed at how great a project it is to make a Roorkee. It is really difficult to mess it up, and even small irregularities won't be noticed when it is assembled.
She proudly brought the chair with her to Aarhus where she is going to be studying. And since she also brought one of her campaign book cases, it looks right at home in her room!

Laura's Roorkee chair.

Have chair - will travel

Riveting indoor.

And then we moved into the shop..

to keep the noise out of the living room.