The end is nigh, we used to say to myself before going into school exams. A glorious morning in Leongatha,
and legs to be attached to chairs.

Legs of course need to be properly tensioned which is what the h-shaped stretchers are for. The stretchers should put a sufficient pressure on the legs that the whole assembly is held together by ‘the force’.

Knocking each one of the highly strung pieces of leg timber emits certain musical notes, with which one can also perform a chair melody. Lining up the legs is done by eye and each hole is drilled by hand. The advantage of drilling by hand is that you can feel the slightest pressure of the drill bit emerging from the other side of the chair seat (the proper side where a bottom goes) and back off at that point. Of course your aim needs to be pretty good in the first place.

I’d made my tenons quite tight and due to the rapidly diminishing hours left (refer exam flash back sentiment) was starting to tension up much like the legs stretchers. Tight being better than loose for a chair leg. We used a glue made of cow hide which stunk like death to a city boy like me. Wally the dog however found the taste quite satisfactory and proceeded to clean up my over glues.

My initial dry fit refused to budge so I put as much force into removing the legs as I could. The leg popped out explosively. Fortunately my face was in the way and prevented the leg timber from flying away and being damaged.

Howard is similarly slowing down. Either gastro has got the better of him or we’ve broken him…