Simon Fiske “literally had 10,000 drums out the back”. He was working as a drum reconditioner for Heinz’ Girgarre factory.
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When a mate asked what they were going to do with them all, he said he would probably crush them.
“Do you reckon you could make a chair out of one?” his mate asked.
The prototype “Ned Kelly chair”, fashioned from a cut-out 44-gallon drum with upholstered seat (the only ‘new’ part of the piece, aside from a steel reinforcing ring) and three reclaimed timber legs, was constructed “with only one trip to the pub” for a six-pack of inspiration.
The first drum-chair was meant to be a “one-off” artistic piece, Mr Fiske explained from an esky-table setting in Peel Street on Friday. He pulled a frosty beer out of a cooler (also made from a drum) built into the centre of a hardwood four-seater table. The plan was to sell it to a hip, inner-city type looking for something unique for their apartment, he said.
Eighteen years later, Mr Fiske sells the chairs as patio sets, kids’ settings, swivelling bar stools and two-seater couches.
He has set up shop at shows around the country and was even offered an exhibit at an international beer festival.
“I said I don’t make beer. But they said I make the best drinking furniture,” Mr Fiske said.
“We’re actually rounded, and our bodies seem to mould into a round drum shape,” Mr Fiske’s flyer says. “The chairs get more comfortable the longer you sit in them.”
The Ned Kelly chairs and esky-tables may never have made it to that hip inner-city apartment, but Mr Fiske said there had been plenty of interest on his first trip to the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
