The third edition of Jennie Alexander’s “Make a Chair from a Tree” is moving apace. We have a rough design for the book – the same 9″ x 9″ form factor as the original edition, and fonts from the same family, with a few tweaks (including full color) to update it a bit.
And of course the content is updated as well. Over her 40+ years of chairmaking and teaching chairmaking, Jennie’s process became more refined as she adopted new tools and techniques, and made the chair rungs ever lighter. But some things – interlocking joints, to name one – never changed. So the new edition is a mix of old and new text and images, featuring Jennie and some of her most ardent students.
Larry Barrett and Peter Follansbee (two of the aforementioned students, who have been instrumental in getting things in shape) finished their initial edits, and I’ve finished flowing the text into the InDesign templates. We’re currently in what I call the “pink text stage” – that is, we have a rough layout, but there are still some questions to answer, old images to dig up, photographs to take and drawings to draw. So I’m making lists of what still needs to be done.
In other words, it’s in process, but there’s still a bit of work to do before we’re ready for publication. We are, however, on track for early 2021.
If you just can’t wait for the new edition of the book, there’s a soup-to-nuts video available here on making an Alexander chair.
Jennie’s first edition was such a pivotal book for many woodworkers, myself included. Looking forward to the 3rd edition. Megan… is there a eta on your dutch tool chest book?
Erm…late 2021?
Much like an engineering review and report, there is always something else to do, areas not qite polished. That is the curse and blessing of electronic writing and editing.
Yay! And I like saying macfat.
Is that when you get fat from eating Big-mac
.
I did a MACFAT with Drew Langsner in 1993. Still use it every day now. Last week, I ran into its great grand-father — a vintage chair made very similar to it, though the stretchers are a bit different. And the seat is hickory bast. Set me back $10.
So looking forward to this! In fact I couldn’t wait so I bought the video and just got started and am now 4 chairs in to a set of hopefully 6. Now I’m fascinated to see how the book challenges my approach. Great job again!
How long does it take to build a JA chair? I’ve never built a chair but have cut lots of dovetails.
I’ve also cut a lot of dovetails and built only one of these chairs…it took a week, but that was with four friends and we might have been taking it a bit easy. So I’d say less than 40 hours altogether (but there’s the time waiting for the bendings to dry, etc.)
I love the video. Fascinating and useful on so many levels. I find Follensbee’s work and writing are also superlative. A great combination. Looking forward to the book!