Barry-Horton.com
Title
Shaker Boxes Oval Handcrafted by Barry Horton
Description
Looking back over my career, there aren’t many areas of woodwork with which I haven’t been involved at one time or another. The same could be said about my other passion cooking, for a number of years in the seventies, as a diversion, my wife and I enjoyed running three very different establishments to some small acclaim and with varying financial reward.
However, as our two children appeared, a son and daughter, and started to grow, we felt the demands of the catering industry incompatible with family life. So, it was decided I would return to woodworking. At first it was necessary that I accept on-site work, such as bank and shop-fitting, though commissions soon appeared and have continued to do so; ranging from an extending table to a whole room, although it is with period chairs that I am most closely associated. It was while researching ways of steam bending wood for chair backs, that I first discovered shaker oval boxes; making a mental note and putting them in my "one day" file.
It was only years later, when looking at some thin stock left over from another project, that I decided to try and make one; a long period passed before I succeeded, involving a lot of research, the learning of a few new skills and the development of some special equipment. However, during that period I became infected by an obsession to make the perfect box. My wife says that this obsession is far worse than anything that has gone before, but I am happy with it and who knows, perhaps it’s because of my other interests, that I fully appreciate the subtlety of an oval box with its elegant and simple lines that are so frustratingly difficult to perfect.
