Coming Soon: ‘Build a Chair from Bulls%$t’

You might recall Chris took a sabbatical of sorts in December to work on a new book – and it’s almost ready to go to press. It might seem like this book, “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t,” came out of nowhere, and awfully quickly. But Chris has been thinking about the chair in this book since working on “The Anarchist’s Design Book” more than a decade ago. He’d planned to include a chair in ADB that was built from home-center materials, but chickened out.

Now that he’s a little older and at peace with what others think of him and his work, he located his eggs.

The chairs shown above, the design in this book, are made entirely from home center materials and easy to find, inexpensive tools. In other words, two of the biggest barriers to getting started in chairmaking – the wood and the tools – are removed.

You’ll notice the seat is not scooped out (seat-scooping tools are among the harder to find and use), yet the chair is comfortable thanks to a wide seat, combined with the geometry of the backrest and the seat tilt. (And if you need a little cushion, add a sheepskin or…a cushion.)

The overall look of the chair, which is “broadly British,” with a touch of American-Windsor lightness, is intended to appeal to contemporary and traditional tastes. Its silhouette evokes antiques, but the lines are simple enough to fit in a contemporary design. The number of sticks gives it a formal air, but that’s balanced by the lightness of the parts.

But will it last? Yes. The joints in this chair are better than in any manufactured chair we’ve seen, with tight mortises and tenons, wedges, pegs, glue and natural tension that adds strength. And though the parts are from the home center instead of the lumberyard, they are carefully selected for maximum strength and longevity. There are no construction compromises.

There will also be no compromises in the construction of the book. It will be a hardcover 112-page black-and-white volume in our 6-1/2″ x 4″ “pocketbook” format, with sewn and taped signatures. Printed, of course, in the United States. The price should be about $22 for the printed book. But like Chris’ other books, the pdf and full-size plans will be free for everyone to download.

The illustrations are by R. Keith Mitchell, who also drew select images for Jim Tolpin and George Walker’s “Euclid’s Door” and “Good Eye,” and all the drawings in Dr. Jeffrey Hill’s “Workshop Wound Care.“

We should be sending the book to press in early March.

Bonus Video
Along with the book, we’ll offer a free video on building the “Bullsh%$t” chair by apprentice Kale Vogt and Bridgid Meyer (Dinkles Woodshop).

Look for “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” – both the book and video – in April.

– Fitz