I was lucky enough to spend a day with Sam at his shop with his apprentices. It was a one day seminar put on the the University that Sam worked with. Amazing day with lots of great memories. Sam was incredibly humble and an incredibly hard worker. I believe he was 91 when I was there and he still worked six ten hour days a week in the shop.
One of my larger regrets in life was not taking the one week long build a chair with Sam class that was offered years ago. I kept intending to do it and never got it done. Sam talked about that class when we were there. Everyone left with a box of parts, and the joints cut. That's about 25% of the work. Sam said 90% of the students never get the chair finished.
Sam had 3 apprentices. Sam spent a week on each piece and each apprentice spent a week. There are 200-250 hours per piece, and most of that spent with rasps and sandpaper.
