We’ve launched two new products today for those of you who like hatchets – and sometimes need to clean up the blood they leave behind….
“Video: Make a Chair from Green Wood with Rudy Everts” is a fun and informative video on how to build Rudy’s armchairs with green woodworking techniques. Rudy has been building these chairs for years and has come up with ways to handle all the angles in the chair using… a folded piece of paper. This video is about woodworking at its most essential. Basic tools. Simple techniques. And stealing the wood from a cemetery. The video is just $25 for the first 30 days. That’s 50 percent off the retail price. Read more about the video here. Rudy and I had a great time shooting this video in November, and I’m so happy we finally are letting it out into the world. Also, Rudy composed all the music for the video (under the name Tongues & Grooves”).
“Special Bundle: ‘Wound Care’ book + Slipcase + Our Favorite Shop Bandages.” Every workshop needs a way to take care of cuts, bruises and more serious injuries. “Workshop Wound Care” by Dr. Jeffrey Hill (an ER doctor and woodworker) gives you exactly that. To make the book easy to find in an emergency, we’ve paired it with this US-made slipcase in red canvas that has been hand painted with a white cross so you can see it across the room. The slipcase can be hung almost anywhere thanks to its brass grommets and screws (included). And, because cheap bandages stink, we include a collection of 20 of our favorite brand of bandages in the shapes and sizes most woodworkers need. We’re offering this bundle for just $43. We have only 99 of these, so act fact if you want one.
One of the most famous furniture makers and designers in the Midwest is someone you don’t hear much about in woodworking circles: David T. Smith. With this blog entry, I hope to change that – at least a little.
Smith is a long-time furniture maker in Morrow, Ohio, who specializes in early and vernacular American styles. Plus many woodworkers I know have worked for him during the last 40 years or been inspired by his designs.
My old boss at Popular Woodworking Magazine worked for The Workshops at David T. Smith, as did associate editor Jim Stuard and some of the other staffers who passed through the magazine. Troy Sexton, one of my favorite woodworkers, was a long-time subcontractor for Smith.
So during my 15 years on staff (1996-2011) I heard a couple hundred stories about Smith and his influence on the furniture market.
It’s hard for me to overstate how important this book was to amateur and professional furniture makers in this area during the 1990s. Everyone had this book. Everyone except me.
A porringer table at Smith’s. We basically copied it for the magazine.
So when Jim and Steve at Popular Woodworking decided to do a porringer table, I was astonished at how they came up with such a great design in short order. It turns out it was from Smith’s book (page 62 of the original edition).
I got wise. And I got my own copy of the book.
It is crammed with fantastic projects and techniques. Once I was shooting an article with Glen Huey and he built his divided-light doors in an astonishingly easy way.
“Wait,” I said. “We have to do an article on this technique you are showing me. It’s amazing.”
Glen quickly fessed up that it was from Smith’s book.
So get the book. Look past the 1990s-era printing and production values. The book was ghost-written by Nick Engler and Mary Jane Favorite at Bookworks Inc. in West Milton, Ohio. I worked with both of them for more than a decade (I was Nick’s editor). The information is fried gold.
Over the weekend, Megan Fitzpatrick and I drove to the Workshops of David T. Smith to attend its annual Festival of American Crafts. It’s been going on for 45 years now and is when Smith opens up the shops to the public. There he has a redware pottery facility, a blacksmith shop, a farm store and – of course – the furniture and finishing operations.
Plus there were a bunch of vendors selling antiques and new furniture. Plus alpacas to pet. Food trucks. And a band to entertain visitors. Smith himself was there, too, talking it up with customers and chatting about kitchens and furniture.
As Megan and I left the festival on Saturday, it struck me that I rarely hear many people mention his name or his book. And as I paged through the book this morning, I also have to admit that this book was a huge influence on me and stoked my love for vernacular pieces. And the designs have aged well during the last 35 years.
So let the record show: David T. Smith is someone I think you should get to know.
Scholarship applications are now open for six spots in a special comb-back class in our Covington, Kentucky, workshop Sept. 15-19. The class is offered through The Chairmaker’s Toolbox, a non-profit organization that provides education and support to those who have been historically excluded from the craft.
The six students will spend five days building and finishing a vernacular comb-back chair using lots of hand tools and occasionally the band saw. The scholarship covers full tuition, all materials, and breakfasts and lunches during the week. (Housing and transportation are the responsibility of the student.)
Full details and the application are here. The deadline to apply is July 6, 2025. People of all skill levels are encouraged to apply.
This is the fourth year I have taught this class, and it’s one of the highlights of my year. The classes are intense, but they’re filled with good food, camaraderie and the occasional moonwalking lesson.
The “goose girl” statue in our Main Strasse neighborhood.
Our workshop is in the inner city in an old German neighborhood. The shop is an 1890s German barroom. As a result, you don’t really need a car once you get here. You can walk anywhere you want to go (including Cincinnati, which is right over the Roebling Suspension Bridge). Covington itself is a diverse, open and accepting community.
A lot of students come here with odd ideas about Kentucky (Will there be plumbing? Will people be riding horses?) I guess you’ll have to come find out for yourself.
You don’t need all the tools to take the class – some students show up with just a tape measure and a lot of enthusiasm. And that’s more than enough. We have plenty of chairmaking and general woodworking tools here we can loan you.
If you aren’t going to apply for the scholarship, please consider passing along this information to someone you know who might be interested.
We are not fancy here. So when Megan threatened to wear a skirt, I knew this was a serious event.
Rob Spiece, director of woodcraft at Berea Student Craft, had scored invitations for all of us to see the opening of a new exhibit at the Taft Museum in Cincinnati: The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick.
It’s rare for Esherick’s pieces to leave Pennsylvania, and this was a chance to see the pieces interpreted by Rob, a woodworker who knows a lot about Esherick’s work and life (Rob is from the Philadelphia area).
So I put on a chambray shirt and pants that weren’t visibly ragged. And we arrived at the Taft’s valet parking station in my minivan.
Esherick (1887-1970) was a polymath who excelled at painting, sculpture, woodblock prints and furniture design. His paintings brush up against American impressionism at the end of the Arts & Crafts Movement in this country. His furniture is incredibly forward-looking, presaging the studio furniture movement in the 20th century.
The first piece we looked at (above) was Esherick’s first woodworking project, Rob said. It’s a huge drop-front desk with massive wooden carved hinges. The little detail in the base that looks like moulding? That’s a big flat drawer. The piece was made with little concern for wood movement or traditional practice, and it has cracks here and there. But the piece has an incredible presence.
I, of course, was interested in Esherick’s chairs. First up was this woven-seat chair made from hammer handles. While the idea was a simple art school trope (furniture from alternative objects), the execution was sublime. Even the choice of wood for the backrest.
This impressionist painting (below) by Esherick was a turning point for the artist, Rob said. Esherick built and carved the frame for the painting, and Esherick’s painting instructor suggested he might be a better carver than painter (I think the painting of yellow pines is beautiful, but what do I know?).
That remark helped propel Esherick into the world of furniture. His home in Malvern, Pennsylvania, became a complete art project for him. Every aspect of the building, from the stairwells down to the drawer pulls, are marked by his work.
Every aspect of his desk reflects this sensibility, all the drawers are filled with handmade cubbies and trays that provide dedicated spaces for all his writing tools.
If you visit Cincinnati in the next few months, I highly recommend visiting this exhibit. I don’t have room to show or discuss his woodcuts, which are incredible. The Taft Museum itself is worth a visit for its architecture – an early wooden Greek Revival home preserved in downtown Cincinnati.
And really, you don’t have to wear a skirt to the exhibit (Megan stuck with her jeans during our visit).
This Irish armchair is one of the most comfortable chairs I make, and I built this particular example in elm and sycamore for an upcoming revised edition of “The Stick Chair Book.”
This chair is an original design of mine, but it borrows heavily from the Irish chairs I studied in person during 2019 and countless other examples from auctions and antique dealers. It is ideal for relaxing or reading, with its broad backrest cradling your back just below your shoulder blades.
The seat is tilted 7.4°, with the back tilted another 25°. Yet the chair doesn’t try to put you in a horizontal position like a chaise-lounge. The seat is 16-3/4” off the floor, which makes it comfortable for a wider range of sitters than most modern chairs.
The backrest and seat come from a single board of American sycamore from Tennessee. The rest of the chair is elm. These two woods are ideal for chairmaking because they resist splitting. So the joints on this chair are hammered and wedged particularly tight. All the joints are assembled with hide glue, which we make here, and are wedged for durability.
The chair is finished with a soft wax (also made here). It offers a low lustre and looks better the more you use the chair. The finish isn’t terribly durable, but it is easily repaired (just add more soft wax). The legs have painted green “socks” on the feet. This is a traditional touch that protects the feet from scuffs (and looks good).
How to Buy the Chair
The chair is $1,800. That price includes shipping and crating to anywhere in the lower 48. If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Friday, May 30. Please use the subject line: “Irish chair.” In the email please include your:
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
If you are the “winner,” the chair will be shipped to your door. The price includes the crate and all shipping charges. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)
