Writing a book is a lot easier than completing the writing of a book.
With more than 500 pages of “The Stick Chair Book” written, designed and ready for proofing, I should be thinking about the foreword, the appendices and the bibliography. But instead, tonight I am picking through my “boneyard” – a pile of chair parts that I have been tending like a compost pile since 2003.
That’s because as I was finishing up the drawings for one of the comb-back chairs in the book, my brain pooped out a new arm design. This new arm fixes a small design flaw that I have been struggling with for months.
As many of you know, “force-poop” is never a good idea. Not in the brain or otherwise. And inspiration comes when it comes. Sometimes when you bear down, and sometimes when you least expect it. (Please don’t read this blog entry to your children or pets.)
Thank goodness for the boneyard. Within five minutes I had all the parts I needed to make a new comb-back. Oak legs, ash stretchers, maple seat, poplar arm, cherry comb and sticks from cherry and old heart pine.
So there will also be paint.
I don’t like keeping scrap around (just ask Megan), but I make a huge exception for chair parts, and they fill up a bunch of five-gallon buckets in my cellar.
And if the chair turns out like I hope, then perhaps I can finish the book with the updated drawings.
Fingers crossed that I get no more new ideas.
— Christopher Schwarz
I am so excited for this book…!!!
You should drill a large hole in the middle of the seat…. Or perhaps a small one depending on how much force you intend the sitter to use.
Cool. Take a couple of pics before you paint it. In black and white the different wood tones might look interesting.
I don’t know how I should be reading this:
“I don’t like keeping scrap around (just ask Megan)”
Megan is still around… so not scrap.
Or — just leave it as a mix-and-match: a (literally) scrap-book of the chairs that have gone before. –GG
On another note, that plastic wrap is of breath use. From bringing home lumber and moldings to storage and putting out trash, it’s enormously useful.
It is the organizing principle of my scrap pile. I’m glad it can be recycled….
You can also cover the hole in the seat of the chair if it is clear for added prank value. Again I have followed a thread off track. Enormously useful.