This delightful 1935 film documents several aspects of the chairmaking trade in Great Britain with a knowledgeable narrator and some great shots of people at work in the forest and the workshop.
Titled “Chair Bodging and Chair Making in the Chiltern Hills,” the film begins in the woods as bodgers break down tree trunks into leg blanks that are then turned and dried in their camp. This aspect of chairmaking – as a form of romantic camping – is on full display here.
Though it’s obviously difficult work, the bodgers seem to be enjoying the process. Some of the best shots include them tapping a beech tree to get water for their grindstone. And making tea using the scraps from the work.
From there the film moves inside, first to a small shop that makes legs both by splitting the work and sawing the blanks out with a circular saw. Finally, the film shifts to a more mechanized factory setting that shows a giant reciprocating saw for making seat blanks. Plus some nice handwork at the bench and some assembly.
Don’t bother turning on the film’s automatic captioning (well do, if you have been drinking and want a laugh).
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Hat tip to Andy Uhl for pointing me to this film, which I have somehow missed before.
There are many ways to mark centerlines on workpieces that are square, round or octagonal. But we wanted a simple, compact, dedicated and beautiful tool for this everyday job.
The Crucible Center Square is based on a vintage tool owned by a bodger friend. His tool was compact but had a weight and shape that made it feel like a worry stone in your hand. The bodger wouldn’t part with his (we don’t blame him), so we decided to make our own.
The underside of the Crucible Center Square.
Our Center Square comes in two versions. The smaller one (now available) is machined from a solid chunk of steel in Kentucky. It measures 3-1/4″ long x 1-5/8″ wide x almost 3/8″ thick overall. The working area of the blade is 2-7/16″ long and includes a 1/8″ hang hole. It is ideal for chairmakers or turners who need to mark the centers of spindles or sticks for turning or shaving.
The larger one will be available later in 2022.
Using the tool is simple. Press the workpiece against the 90° opening on the underside of the tool. Then scribe a pencil line or knife line along the tool’s blade. Rotate the workpiece and repeat.
In this video, Megan Fitzpatrick walks you through the process:
For the last five weeks we have been shooting and editing a long-form video on how to build a stick chair using simple tools (plus a few – mostly inexpensive – specialty tools that make the job easier, which are covered in the video) with wood from the lumberyard.
The video clocks in at more than four hours long with 18 separate chapters that cover all aspects of construction, from selecting the lumber to applying the finish. The video will be available to stream or download (without any digital rights management). Above is the trailer, which says “Available Now” at the end; you’re getting a sneak peak – it’ll be available on Aug. 15.
Purchasers will also receive a digital file with full-size patterns for the chair shown in the video, which can be printed out at any reprographics firm or office supply store. Plus, notes on the sizes of the chair parts and sources for tools used in the video.
The video will be released on Monday, Aug. 15. For the first two weeks, we will sell it at an introductory price of $50. After that introductory offer, the video (and its downloads) will be $75.
This is our first in-house video for Lost Art Press. For previous videos we hired professional videographers, video editors and sound technicians. While that process produced a slick-looking product, the filming process was difficult and exhausting. Hiring a professional crew is expensive, and so there was always a rush to get the thing shot because of the hourly bill.
Thanks to new technology and a lot of practice on our part during the last two years, we now are confident we can produce high-quality video (and sound) without hiring a crew. As a result, this video was shot in painstaking detail and took five weeks. (It usually takes me two-and-a-half days to build a chair, so this was a sloth-like process.)
We were also able to incorporate graphics and details that had to be glossed over with a professional crew.
This, however, is not cinematic art. (Your spouse will likely sleep through parts.)
I consider the “Build a Stick Chair” video as a companion to “The Stick Chair Book.” But not a substitute. The book took about 56 weeks of work and goes into details that are impossible for a talking head to explain on your television. But the video shows bodily motion in a way that print never can. Some things about chairmaking are so simple if you can just see the process unfold before your eyes.
I’m not saying you should get both the book and the video. Instead, start with the one that appeals to you most. If you are a visual learner, the video is probably the correct choice. If you are first a reader, the book is what I would recommend.
Above is a short trailer I put together that shows some of the processes that are explored in the video. There is a cat in at least one shot.
Thanks to Harper Claire Haynes (our summer intern) who did the bulk of the shooting and editing. And Megan Fitzpatrick, who filled in every day and helped immensely with getting the video into its final semi-polished form.
Last word: Don’t expect a flood of long-form videos from us. Our first love is books. But when we can do a video (and it we think it will help people) we now have the technology and skill to do it.
This six-stick comb-back chair is based on two Welsh examples I have studied in person and admired. But it definitely has four feet planted in the Americas as it is made with quartersawn and plainsawn red oak (and was built by a Southern boy).
I built the chair during the filming of our soon-to-be released video about how to build stick chairs, so you will be able to watch every step of the construction process, from choosing the wood to applying the finish (baby photos!).
I am selling this chair for $1,500 via a random drawing. Instructions on purchasing the chair can be found near the bottom of this blog entry. Here are some more details about its design and construction.
This particular chair is set up for general use. The back is fairly upright at 16° off the seat. And the seat tilts at 3°, giving the chair an overall tilt of 19°. The seat is 16-3/4” off the floor to accommodate both short and tall sitters, and the chair is 38-1/2” high overall. So it has a nice presence in a room.
One of the goals with this chair was to make it a bit more roomy. There is 19-1/2” between the arms, and the arm shape is square-ish to accommodate stocky sitters.
All the straight components of this chair were sawn or split out to be as strong as possible. The arms are made from four pieces of quartersawn red oak. All of the chair’s major joints are assembled using hide glue, so repairs in the (far) future will be easy. The chair is finished with a non-toxic soft wax, a blend of beeswax and raw linseed oil that my daughter cooks up here in our shop. The wax is an ideal chair finish. It is not terribly durable, but it is easily renewed or repaired.
The new oil/wax finish looks a wee brash to my eyes right now. But it will mellow quickly as the oil absorbs UV and imparts a little warmth to the oak.
How to Purchase This Chair
This chair is being sold via a random drawing. The chair is $1,500 plus domestic shipping. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.) If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Thursday, Aug. 11. In the email please use the subject line “Chair Sale” and include your:
First name and last name
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
After all the emails have arrived on Aug. 11, we will pick a winner that evening via a random drawing.
If you are the “winner,” the chair can be picked up at our storefront for free. Or we can ship it to you via common carrier. The crate is included in the price of the chair. Shipping a chair usually costs about $250 to $300, depending on your location.
In the 15 years John and I have run this company, we’ve never had a big “sale” for our books and tools.
Sure, we’ve had to occasionally drop the price on a product we are closing out (remember “The Book of Plates?”). But we’ve tried hard to keep our prices fair and consistent, so that we weren’t treating new customers differently than our existing ones.
Due to a number of crazy business swings caused by the pandemic, paper shortages and labor problems, we are reducing the price of 13 of our books by 40 percent until the end of August 2022. These are not slow-selling books we are trying to offload. The sale includes all of my “anarchist” series books.
Instead, this is a way to reduce inventory that we built up in the dark days of the pandemic. We are now paying a lot to store it in a climate-controlled warehouse, and that expense is becoming annoying. So here is your chance to get some of our best titles at a price you won’t see again.
Prices are effective immediately through midnight Aug. 31, 2022. You can see everything that is on sale on this page. Here are the specifics.
If you have been a long-time customer then you know this is highly unusual. We hope we won’t have to repeat this sort of sale until there is another world-shaking event (which is to say, never).
