Next week I teach a class here in building the lowback stick chair from “The Stick Chair Book” to a class of six students. Our lumberyard was low on straight-grained 8/4 red oak that was ideal for chairmaking, and I barely squeaked out enough material for six chairs. I always build a chair during a…
Read moreThe Veritas Power Tenon Cutters are incredible tools. They are based on the old hollow auger tools, but they are easier to set, maintain and use. They make perfect round tenons, and you don’t have to use a drill to power them. I have used a brace, and my right hand at times, to make…
Read moreFor the last year I’ve been building chairs using slabs of bog oak that are 2,000 years old (according to a carbon dating test) and was harvested in Poland. Furniture maker Andy Brownell is responsible for starting me down this path. He offered me some scraps of bog oak from one of his commission pieces….
Read moreAfter 20 years of studying vernacular chairs in Western cultures, I am happy to state – again and again – something that some people refuse to believe. Chairs do not need stretchers to be strong or to last hundreds of years. The furniture record is clear. Chairs without stretchers survive just fine. They survive for…
Read moreThe following short story was passed to me by a guy at the John C. Campbell Folk School, and it is well worth reading, especially if you are a vernacular chair nerd. Published in the Christian Science Monitor in 1986 (the year I graduated high school), the short story “I’d Like to Make You a…
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