This lowback stick chair is made using a stash of old Honduras mahogany I have been sitting on since writing “Campaign Furniture.” The mahogany had been sitting for decades at Midwest Woodworking until they closed a few years back. This chair is made from one single board, so the color is consistent throughout all its parts.
This lowback design and my Gibson chair are the two most comfortable chairs I make. The chair offers excellent lumbar support for hours of sitting, relaxing or working. The seat is 16-3/4” off the floor. Overall, it is 28” tall, 28” wide and 22” deep.
The chair is finished with two coats of garnet shellac plus black wax. All the joints are assembled with hide glue and oak wedges so the chair can be easily repaired by future generations.
The chair’s design comes from “The Stick Chair Book” but with some small variations. The arm is made with five pieces (instead of four) to reduce wood-movement). Plus, this mahogany chair features hexagonal legs and old-style hands, which fits in with the wood and its deep scarlet finish.
The chair is $1,600 and is being sold via a random drawing. To enter, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, March 29. In the email, please use the subject line “March lowback” and include your name, shipping address and phone number (this is used for a trucking quote only). The winner will be contacted on Wednesday after the drawing closes.
On shipping: You can pick up the chair at our storefront, or I will deliver it for free within 100 miles of Cincinnati. Otherwise, I can ship it via common carrier to addresses in the continental U.S. This usually costs between $200 and $300, depending on where you live.
— Christopher Schwarz
I love the lines and proportions on this chair!
Beautiful chair Chris! Congratulations!
Wow, that’s a beauty!
Had you considered a charity auction? (I wonder what a woodworking-related charity might be, not obvious to me)
There are lots of woodworking charities that we support directly with donations.
https://blog.lostartpress.com/2022/12/09/woodworking-charities-we-love-and-contribute-to/
Lost Art Press is my primary source of income. But it is not enough to keep our household running, which is why I build furniture to sell and teach classes.
So yes, I have considered a charity auction. But I have a $6,000 insurance payment coming due on our building in April as well. So that’s first in line.
Chris, that is the most attractive chair that you have yet built (to my eye). My goal is to build one like that, some day… hopefully in the next year. Do you have any thoughts as to why mahogany is not used more frequently as a chair material? Is it inferior to the more commonly used woods?
Stick chairs were usually made of humble materials. Good mahogany is expensive. It is plenty strong for this task.
I really like this one. I use the same wood to build ukuleles. Hard to find the good stuff like that!
I really like the look of this chair. So I decide to give it a go. In your opinion, what is the most appropriate book and set of plans to accomplish a similar chair to my own desk? The Stick Chair Book, Chairmaker’s Notebook or the “Video: Build a Stick Chair” – Note I never built one I just fix or brought back to life like a dozen of chairs. Thanks for your time and advice in advance. All the best from Portugal
Antonio,
The plans for this chair are in “The Stick Chair Book.” The video covers a lot of the necessary operations, but not the construction of the backrest.
Hope this helps.
Amazing work, as always! You said, that you made the chair off of a single board. I’ve read the stick chair book and watched the stick chair video, however I haven’t yet a good feeling on how much wood you would want to buy for a chair like this. Also how to decide your board one you got it.
Also for us in germany the lumberyards are much less sophisticated. We usually get crappy spruce or pine at the hardware store, poorly dried slabs with wild grain from Craigslist or „search for the good slabs“ in the stack at the „wood dealer“ if you are happy enough to have one close by. Edged hardwood is really hard to find. Maybe I just haven’t found the right sources..
The wood for the legs, stretcher and sticks must have dead-straight grain throughout their lengths. The wood for the seat, arm and backrest does not have to be straight at all.
This chair was from a board that was 1.75″ x 17″ x 108″ that just happened to be very straight through most of its length. That board represents about 45 board feet of lumber. However, there is a LOT of waste to cut out the curves and massage straight sticks from that board. In the end, the chair itself is made from only 14 board feet.
So my typical advice is:
Hope this helps.