In June I was contacted by Craig Kaviar, another Louisville smith, about a project for Brown-Forman Distilleries. B-F is something of a patron of Craig's and they had asked him to assemble some other artists to make things from their excess barrels. This was to wow an upcoming stockholders meeting and generate sales of used barrels. These barrels have been charred on the inside and contain about half a gallon of really potent liquid and a whole bunch of explosive vapors.
I commenced by numbering all of the barrel staves so that I could reassemble the base. I then measured the diameter of the barrel where I wanted the clams to fit. The forgings are all 6061 aluminum drops from my metal supplier. The clams were forged from 3/4 x 2 ½ and are semi-circles with a little toe on the end to hold the staves. V shaped feet were welded to the clams to make it a bench, not a rocker. The clams were driven onto stave numbers one through fifteen and then I could start the seat.
A piece of flat stock was screwed to the underside of the seat staves and it was placed of the base for marking. I routed recesses for the end of the clams in the bottom of the seat and cut the staves so that they overhung the base by an inch. The backrest was fabricated and all of the aluminum was treated with Birchwood Casey Aluminum Black and waxed. The wood I scrubbed with a bristle brush and water to remove the sticky liquor residue. I screwed the backrest to the seat and put it in the truck.
