After learning the epoxy has enough gap-filling properties to make a great edge joint with “factory” edges, we decided to see if Elmer’s Glue Max could also do the trick. James Wright of Wood by Wright has been testing glues for years and has some nice things to say about the Elmer’s Glue Max.
Spoiler alert: It works great.
We don’t use Elmer’s much, so this is good information to know. And if you are a beginning woodworker who doesn’t have the tools to make flawless edge joints, this glue can take away some of the worry.
Bridgid Gruber (and Kale) are your guides through the “bulls%$t.”
We have just launched a free 12-part video series that accompanies the new book “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” and walks you through the chairmaking project.
Filmed by Bridgid Gruber (of Dinkle’s Woodshop) and apprentice Kale Vogt, the video walks you through every single stage of the process, from collecting the materials at the home center to painting the assembled chair.
Bridgid and Kale also bring their own perspective and humor to the project. They filmed the whole thing with complete creative freedom. And they spent months editing the video, adding graphics and generally making the video fun to watch.
We’re offering this video for free forever to help make chairmaking more accessible. In addition to the free video (it starts here), you can download a pdf of the book for free here and download free full-size patterns for the chair here.
And the book itself is only $21 (but is still made in the USA to our rigorous library-grade specifications).
This project – which we lovingly call the “BS Chair” – is made from home center materials and built with home center tools. Anyone can do it. Wanna see proof? Watch Kale and Bridgid make the journey for the first time in this great video:
In the next few days, we’ll release the free video series on “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t,” which will help make chairmaking accessible for more people. The chair (and stool) in the book are built using only home center materials and tools.
After finishing up the book and videos, my brain did not get the memo that the project was complete. One night this week, my brain came up with a way to glue up boards of construction lumber to make the seat without a good edge joint.
So we filmed this video where I join two factory edges from construction lumber with home center epoxy. Epoxy fills gaps. Does it work? Yes. Surprisingly well.
My brain is slow, but sometimes it does OK work. Check out the video for details
Signed by the author, Christopher Schwarz. The first 500 customers get a free merit badge.
Our latest book.
The latest book from Lost Art Press shows you how to build a comfortable and sturdy chair using only materials and tools from the home center. No jigs. No specialty tools. Literally anyone can do it.
If that’s all you need to know, you can buy the book in our store here. It’s $21 and is made in the USA. (Or you can buy the complete set of our pocket-sized books – including this one – at a special price here.)
One of the seven chairs I built while writing the book.
Still unsure? Here’s how we did it. The chair’s legs are made from hickory tool handles. The spindles are 5/8” dowels. The arm is plywood and the seat and backrest are construction pine. Most of the cutting is done with a jigsaw or small tabletop band saw. All the mortises are made with a drill and home-center bits.
What about all the compound angles? Isn’t that difficult? Nope. We developed a way to drill all the mortises for the sticks with ease. You just clamp the arm and seat together like a sandwich and drill the mortises according to the patterns. (You can download free full-size patterns for the chair via this link.)
“Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” is short – just 112 pages, written by me and fully illustrated by Keith Mitchell. You can read the book in just a few hours.
The first 500 customers receive a free merit badge.
If you are intimidated by chairmaking, the materials or the tools, “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” will remove any doubts, fears or excuses. And what if you can’t afford the $21 to buy the book? No problem. You can download the entire book for free here. (Don’t worry. You won’t have to register or give up your email. Just click and the book will download to your device.)
The physical book is nicely printed in the USA and is worth owning. “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” is one of our “pocket books” – inexpensive but well-made books. It measures 4″ x 6.5″. The text is printed on #70 matte-coated paper (acid free). The book’s pages are gathered into signatures and then sewn together – a step few publishers bother with today. The book block is then glued and reinforced with fiber tape and covered with heavy cloth-covered boards. This is a permanent library-grade book – designed to last a couple centuries.
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.
The chair is built entirely without jigs using a method called “sandwich drilling” – shown above.
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.
