person from getting through the bars. "There 

 also is a four-inch subfloor that kept prisoners 

 from getting out," she adds. 



Presently, the couple is renovating two 

 houses from the 18th century and one from the 

 early 19th century. 



"It is very time consuming," she adds. "It 

 took us three years to restore the restaurant." 



Furniture Class 



To get to the Hobbs complex, turn off N.C. 

 17 north to Hertford onto Snug Harbor Road. 

 The road is flat with endless farm fields and little 

 traffic. The only sign of life is a country store 

 and church at the end of the road. 



Turn the comer and the complex is on 30 

 acres next to his family's farm. 



His workshop is in a building behind his 

 home. 



During a recent class, Hobbs, sporting a 

 plaid shirt and green apron, gives a lesson in 

 cutting a mortise and tenon for a joint on the 

 back of a chair. 



"You cut it to the width and then to the 

 length," he says. "Then find the center line." 



After the demonstration, Hobbs shows his 



two students the back of a 

 finished cherry and walnut 

 chair. 



"This is not angled," 

 he says while pointing to the 

 splat that is shaped so that it 

 is thinner than parts in the front of the chair. 



While teaching a class, Hobbs always 

 works on a piece alongside his students. 



"Every time I do a class I make a chair," 

 says Hobbs. "I teach four or five classes a year." 



Most of the students make furniture as a 

 hobby. 



"This is my first woodworking class," 

 says Curt Ivey, who works for the U.S. Navy 

 in Virginia. "It is a jump in my skill level. I 

 promised my wife that I would make her a set 

 of chairs." 



The class is intense — running from 8 

 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 

 a half day on Saturday. The students break 

 at lunch, when they walk across the yard to 

 the restaurant in the complex. They eat lunch 

 together at a large table in the restaurant 

 decorated in an early American style with a 

 black-and-white checkered floor and Hobbs' 

 fine reproductions. 



"I painted the floor," says Hobbs. "I made 

 every piece of furniture in the restaurant but the 

 bench and highchair." 



After lunch, the students smooth the edges 

 of the backs of their unfinished chairs. 



Then Hobbs gives step-by-step instructions 

 in cutting out a pattern for the back of the chair, 

 including marking the pattern on the wood. 



'You always work from the center with a 

 pattern," says Hobbs. "You have to use a pattern 

 with a chair and make it reasonably close to the 

 partem." 



Then Hobbs shows the students how to 

 pierce out a hole with a saw. 



"You need to saw everything at a 90- 

 degree angle," he adds. 



After the demonstration, the students use 

 the saw to cut a piece of wood. 



Hobbs, who is a perfectionist, eyes every 

 inch of their work. 



'You want gentle curves and no bulges," 

 says Hobbs. "You need to work from the back." 



By the end of the week, the students have 

 graceful Chippendale chairs for their homes. 



Ivey learned so much in the class that he is 

 coming back for an armchair class. 



"I thought I was a good woodworker, but 

 Ben's knowledge of making furniture is almost 

 overwhelming," says Ivey. "In the old days, 

 I would have been called an apprentice. Ben 

 would have been the master who was passing 

 on his skills." m 



Hobbs' classes are tauglit throughout the 

 year. For more information, call 252/426-7815, 

 e-mail bhobbs@hobbsfurmtoe.com, or visit the 

 Web: www.hobbslurniture.com 



COASTWATCH 



