I 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 the chairmaking craft. But for some reason, I am constantly finding new and usually small ways to make things easier.
When I wrote “The Stick Chair Book,” I thought I was pretty much settled in how I make my chairs. But by the time we had to reorder the second printing, I decided to revise the book. Not in major ways, but in many little minor ways. And I added a lot of little shortcuts I had discovered.
Now, about a year after releasing the revised edition of “The Stick Chair Book,” I’d like to revise it again for the next printing. Again, nothing major, just small things here and there that make it easier to drill and assemble things.
Even today, I came up with a stupid little trick that really helped. Here it is. When drilling the mortises for the stretchers, tape a stick or skewer or chopstick to the centerline seam of your drill. It helps immeasurably in lining up the drill between the mortises in the legs and between the mortises in the side stretchers.
I’ve seen lots of tricks that use rubber bands or lasers. But none is as simple as taping a scrap to the drill.
As a chairmaker and author, I know I’m not alone in the way I feel about my past writings. Many other chairmakers are constantly finding new ways to make the process a little easier.
Why have we not created the “Unified Method of All Chairmaking?” Because there are at least 100 ways to make a chair. And 1,000 tricks that go with each method.
This is one of the things I love about woodworking – the constant discovery. But it can be frustrating both as an author and a reader.
— Christopher Schwarz
Excellent. Simple quick and works!
Thanks for showing us your continuing evolution in chairmaking methods. It’s very enlightening.
Are there things that you changed, really liked, but then went back to an older method?
I go back and forth between cylindrical tenons and tapered ones.
That’s a great tip. I’ve definitely struggled with that, but I’ll give this a shot.
This is great Chris. If interested in another take, I would suggest calling this a “fine tuning for perfection” trick. It’s great, it’s easy, but I suspect some first time chairmakers might see it and think that the amount of perfection required is too much for them.
I would tell others who haven’t tried it yet, on my first chair I bored the stretcher angles completely wrong, and then used a rasp to open up the holes to get the tenons to fit. I am sure they are weaker than they should be, but they are still plenty strong.
Not only is this a great tip, I have a few other situations where I think this would be of value. As far as revisions to past books go, would it be possible to post each years ‘great ideas we’ve come up with this year”, as a yearly PDF addenda, with page references to the last edition that was printed?
I’ll use that idea! Thank you!
As a quality engineer with a particular interest in process improvement it was always interesting to take a class with Mike Dunbar after a couple year break, he was always improving the process and credited the students who had come up with great ideas (the immortals).
Sounds like Chris is doing the same thing.