Also, Sunday is the last day to order for Christmas delivery.
We just released our Big Protractors in 1/8” Baltic birch and lowered the price to $45. They’re still made in the USA – they’re just less expensive and made of wood instead of plastic.
For years we used Trolase, a quality plastic product, for our Big Protractos and Bevel Monkeys. Trolase is good stuff, but we are eliminating as much plastic as possible from our products. And in this case, we were able to lower the price as well.
The Big Protractor is based on the oversized protractors that geometry teachers used to draw out things on the blackboard. I picked up one of these old tools years ago and was immediately struck by how useful it is for woodworking.
Because of its size, it is far more accurate than the tiny plastic protractors. With the little protractors, you can barely infer 1/2° when working. With the big protractors, it’s child’s play to infer down to 1/4° or less. And when it comes to designing chairs, a fraction of a degree makes a noticeable difference in a 20”-long chair leg or a 26”-long spindle.
If you are planning to visit our storefront this season, here are our holiday hours.
We’ll be open for our regular hours (10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday) through Christmas Eve (Wednesday, December 24).
We will close all operations – the storefront, fulfillment and customer service – from Christmas Day through New Year’s Day (Jan. 1, 2026). We will resume regular operations on Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. The storefront will open that day at 10 a.m.
So if you order an item on our website between Christmas and New Year, it will be fulfilled on or after Jan. 2, 2026.
This year has been a wild one for all of us at Lost Art Press, and we decided to give everyone a week off (with full pay), to recover and enjoy some slow time before 2026.
Here we have one of my seven-stick comb-back chairs set up for lounging by the fire. It is finished with earth pigments, purified linseed oil and soft wax. This is the chair form shown on the cover of “The Stick Chair Book: 2nd Revised Edition.”
I’m selling this chair for $1,900 via a random drawing; details are below. That price includes crating and shipping to anywhere in the continental U.S. But first, some details on the chair.
This chair is ideal for relaxing by a fire. The back sticks tilt at 20°, with the seat tilted an additional 5°. The seat is 16-5/8” off the floor at the pommel, but I am happy to cut that down for shorter sitters.
Like all my chairs, this one is assembled with animal glue, which allows for easy repairs in the (far away) future. All joints are glued and wedged with local hickory for strength.
The chair’s finish is one I developed so the chair will immediately look at home among antiques or in an older home. The chair is colored with earth pigments – soot from the fire and red dirt from Ercolano, Italy. Before the pigment bonds with the wood, I gently wipe away some of the pigment on the seat, arm and combs. This is to suggest some age on the chair, but it is not intended to fool anyone. It’s just too subtle.
After the pigment and oil has polymerized, I coat the chair in soft wax to provide some sheen and some protection. The finish is entirely non-toxic.
Like all my chairs, the parts are shaped and fitted using hand tools. That means the surfaces are smooth where they contact the body and a bit textured on the underside from the hand tools. This is how these chairs were made, it’s how they have always looked and it would be odd to sand the secondary surfaces to a mirror.
How to Buy the Chair
I’m selling this chair for $1,900 via a random drawing. That price includes everything – 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, December 12. Please use the subject line: “Stick 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. There are no additional charges. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)
This large but airy Windsor is a reproduction of a circa 1735 example that may be the earliest recorded Windsor chair. It’s unlike any British Windsor I’ve seen before, with simple turned strut legs, a fully carved seat (even underneath) and a comb that’s shaped like an entablature.
I’m selling this chair via silent auction; details are below. The bidding price includes crating and shipping to anywhere in the continental U.S. But first, some details on the chair.
The single-board seat is 24” x 16”, making it 25 percent wider than my stick chairs. The honey locust seat is carved out with an adze, scorp and travisher to a remarkable 1-1/2” depth. Then the underside of the seat is also fully carved, even below the pommel, to create the illusion of a very thin seat.
The legs are red oak and have dead-straight grain for strength. The tenons are larger than normal to make the joints more durable. All the joints in the chair are glued with animal glue (which is reversible for repairs) and wedged with hickory.
Above the seat, the arm is red oak and steam-bent, allowing it to be quite thin. The sticks are just under 1/2” in diameter and are made of dead-straight red elm so they are flexible and strong.
And the comb is red oak and decorated with a bead that is scratched in by hand.
The chair is set up for all-around use, and is comfortable for dining, keyboarding and reading by the fire. The seat is 17” high (measured from the pommel). But I am happy to cut it down to accommodate shorter sitters.
Like all my chairs, all the parts are shaped and fitted using hand tools. That means the surfaces are smooth where they contact the body and a bit coarse on the underside. This is how these chairs were made, it’s how they have always looked and it would be odd to sand the secondary surfaces to a mirror.
The chair is finished with soft wax, a safe and chair-friendly finish. It looks better with age and is easily repaired in the future by adding some additional soft wax.
All in all, this is a remarkable chair – comfortable, lightweight and pleasant to look at.
How to Buy the Chair
I’m selling this chair via a silent auction with the minimum bid being $500. The price you bid will include everything – shipping and crating to anywhere in the lower 48. If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Friday, December 12. Please use the subject line: “Lincolnshire chair.” In the email please include:
Your bid
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
If you are the highest bidder, the chair will be shipped to your door. The price includes the crate and all shipping charges. There are no additional charges. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)
Note: Plans and patterns for this chair will be in The Stick Chair Journal No. 3, which will be out in January 2026.
Saint Maud’s – a community workshop in northern Wisconsin – just started a 38-week course for 4-H kids to build the armchair in “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t.” Check out the first video here.
They’ll be posting videos on Instagram of the kids as they build their chairs. We’re going to follow along. You can, too. Here’s their Instagram feed. And their Facebook page.
The public workshop resides in a decommissioned Catholic church (hence the “saint” part). And the “Maud?” That was the name of a beloved family dog. (It’s not a religious school. I don’t even know if there is a Saint Maud….)
It’s a great little organization. In addition to the public workshop, they operate a “Sloyd Bus” that travels to surrounding communities to spread the love of handwork to kids. Read more about the Sloyd Bus here.
The workshop was started by Karl and Charlie Zinsmaster in 2022. Charlie (the father) is a long-time community leader. Karl (the son) has a degree in furniture design and worked in New York City and Minnesota before returning home to start the workshop.
We’re all thrilled to see this. The book (which is free to download) is supposed to make chairmaking accessible to anyone with basic tools and home center materials. We can’t wait to see the chairs come together during the coming weeks.
