I love books, photos and drawings, but if you want to quickly learn a lot about making and designing chairs, there is one path: Study the suckers in person every chance you get. Up close and slowly. Last week, Welsh chairmaker Chris Williams arranged for me and some friends to study four old stick chairs…
Read moreThe following is an excerpt from “The Stick Chair Book” by Christopher Schwarz. Cutting down the legs of a chair so they rest flat on the floor is another one of the “great mysteries” faced by most beginning chairmakers. If you’ve never done it, it seems impossible. But if you’ve done it even once, it…
Read moreYou can now order the carefully chosen wooden parts needed for the Hobbit-y Chair from The Stick Chair Journal No. 2. The kits are $295 and are in red elm, my favorite chairmaking wood. You can order a kit here from Alexander Brothers in Virginia. Shea Alexander and his employees have been supplying me with…
Read moreI’ve never shown my work in a gallery. I’ve been asked a few times, but my problem is this: I don’t want to give up 50 percent of the sales price to the gallery. I’d rather skip the glory of cheese and boxed wine in plastic cups and sell my work direct. But gallery shows…
Read moreI cut dovetails pretty much the exact same way I did 20 years ago. Same layout, same sawing, same chiseling, same fitting. But when it comes to my chairmaking, things seem to change every day. I’ve been building stick chairs since 2003 (and frame chairs since 1997). So it’s not like I am new to…
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