Chairs complete

 

Lane de Formente to Pic Montaud

First big stomp in a while and a re-visit to the ridge between Lane de Formente and Pic Montaud (2496m).  This time in the reverse direction to last time (Lane de Formente first). Breezy wanted to try to find the long traversing path from Cabane de Pouil which goes to south of Serre de Bougnos before climbing to Lane de Formente. We missed the left fork (or it didn't exist) and we ended up passing the pylons, when we realised our mistake. We scrambled very steeply up the next drainage line and with the path not really evident, we clawed our way up steep gispet in full sun to reach the summit of Serre de Bougnos and then follow the ridge northwards over point 1946m to the summit of Lane de Formente. A hot tiring slog of an ascent.

The last part of the slog upto Serre de Bougnos

Serre de Bourgnos

Susie was struggling with heat so we took a long lunch just before Escale de Saint Girons. The views from the ridge are superb in all directs and it's airy without ever being difficult. The rest of the walk was a joy and the only people we saw all day were 2 parapentistes overhead who flew from Mont Valier and the berger at Cabane Pouil.

1500m of height gain and 16km in a liesurely 9 hours.

Escale de St girons and point 2460m

Encantats and the Aigues Tortes

Al sporting some of the vulture feathers found on the ridge

Last part of the ridge to Pic Montaud

Pic Montaud summit

The descent to the Port de Salau then back to Al and Breezy's above Salau

 

Rainy stomp

 

Sometimes the weather forecast isn't right...a planned trip to Pic de Lasirouge with Sheri and Michiel ended up being a rainy stomp in low cloud to the Cabane Subera. Glad for a dry place for a lunch and some Polish vodka left by visitors on the Chemin de Liberté. Sheep were being kept in...mist gives bears the element of surprise!

Just waiting for oil

 

First seat

 

Seat had to be in two parts and little smaller than originally planned because of shortage of remaining wood, but so far so good!

Gluing up

 

All day, splitting the tenons, making tiny wedges and gluing up. Cleaning up the tenon ends next then seats.

Dining chairs - first dry assembly

After a few days of toil in the workshop the first new chair is dry assembled and three others are almost ready. Some finishing to edges and then the the tenons to split and wedges to make before gluing up. I'm hoping to have enough walnut left to make the seats, but we'll have to wait and see!

 

4 chairs = a lot of wood! 

64 pieces to be rough sawn, then planed to produce a flat face and square edge, sawn to dimension on the table saw, then planed to remove the saw marks...and is if that wasn't enough the chair members are hexagonal so then they each have to be planed four times more!

 

Dining chairs project

In 2008 my neighbour felled a walnut tree and I salvaged two sections of trunk and had it planked for drying. Some I used for a gun stock I made for a friend, the rest has been in storage (for 12 years!) with a plan to eventually make some dining chairs for Quélébu.

The time has finally come and I've started work on some chairs (4 probably) which will be inspired by some of the furniture made by Richard La Trobe-Bateman in the early 1980's like the one below.