This is the final post in a three-post series featuring images from a carousel of Don Weber’s slides, which he found while working with us on a profile for The Stick Chair Journal No. 4. This post features images of chairs and a wonderful series of photos from a Country Workshops chairmaking class, taught by Don Weber with Drew Langsner in attendance. Some have captions from Don (in quotes), some have captions from us, many have no captions at all.
Enjoy!
This is the second post in a three-post series featuring images from a carousel of Don Weber’s slides, which he found while working with us on a profile for The Stick Chair Journal No. 4. These images show chairmakers, Don’s journey to the Wycombe woodlands, Don’s pole lathe and his Welsh left-handed writing chair. Captions from Don are in quotes.
Enjoy!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
While working on Don Weber’s profile for The Stick Chair Journal No. 4, Don told me that he had a carousel of slides that might of interest. These were images he used during a talk he gave with Michael Dunbar, and, he believes, Jennie Alexander, at a chair symposium at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library.
Don has always enjoyed reading and is well known for his extensive collection of books on the craft, including many rare and first-edition books. Many of those books were lost in a 2010 flood that sent four-and-a-half feet of water, mud and oil (there was an auto repair shop across the street) into Don’s shop. He tried to salvage what he could. Many of the images on these slides were pulled from those now-lost books.
We pored over these images and thought you might like to as well. Some have captions from Don (in quotes), some have captions from us, some have no captions at all.
Enjoy!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Last month, I went to Nashville where Travis Curtis taught a group of fellow woodworkers and me how to build a Jennie Chair and, for better or for worse, I decided it should be purple and have squirrels on it. The chair was built, woven and painted purple in five days. Mapping out and painting the squirrel design back at the Willard Street shop took a couple more days.
The chair is painted in plum from Real Milk Paint and finished with a coat of garnet shellac and Soft Wax on top. The details are painted with acrylic paint from Real Milk Paint. The chair’s overall height reaches 33-1/4″, and its width is 18-1/4″. The seat height is 17-1/4″, and the depth is 14-1/2″. The seat is woven with sturdy recycled paper.
The design is Jennie Alexander’s from “Make a Chair from a Tree.”
The back slats hug the body nicely and slightly bend with the sitter. The woven seat has a gentle give to it – not stiff and not loose. The chair is lightweight at 6 pounds.
I chose squirrels as the star rodent for this chair. I wanted to replicate the layout of the hare and flowers on the Irish chair I made earlier this year while also allowing the chair to have its own personality.
This chair is ready to start its life journey with a special someone. I’m selling it via silent auction with the starting bid being $600. The highest bid is the price you will pay. The price includes crating and shipping anywhere to the lower 48 with no additional charges.
If you wish to buy this chair, send and email to [email protected] before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, August 19, 2026. Please use the subject line “Squirrel Chair.” In the email please include your:
If you are the winner, the chair will be shipped to your door. If you’re local to Covington, you can pick it up at our shop.
— Katherine Schwarz
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement. To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books. To submit your own idea, email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is from David Farnum, in Greer, South Carolina.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
One of the challenges I have when shaving long sticks is getting a good fit – one that’s not too skinny – where the stick fits into the armbow. For a long time, I drilled a mortise using the same bit as I did for the armbow in a piece of 2x scrap, but the simple slot gauge below makes it much quicker and easier to check the size. I already had the 8″-long piece of maple because that’s what I use to check the height of the armbow. Cutting the slots in that gives me one less thing to keep track of.
The gauge is just a series of notches cut a tiny bit wider than what’s labeled. Making the slots a little bigger keeps me from overshooting – when the stick fits the slot, I can carefully fine-tune the last little bit with a scraper or block plane. The stick doesn’t get jammed like it often did in the mortised 2x scrap and rotating it in the slot quickly shows where the high spots are.
— David Farnum
