I’ve taught woodworking at Dictum GmbH in Germany for many years. And it’s always a bit disorienting (but fun). I’m an American with a German last name who teaches people how to make chairs from Wales, Scotland and Ireland. And the students are German, Swedish, Mexican, Polish, Dutch….
And the class is in Bavaria. But taught in English.
Somehow we make it work, and the classes are always the highlight of my summer. During the last decade, I’ve made lots of close friends overseas through these classes. This year I taught students how to make an Irish Gibson chair, then we spent a week making a comb-back chair with steam-bent components.
Heiko Pulcher, one of my friends at Dictum, took the following video during my class on the Gibson chair. Check it out.
This class also represented a big step forward in my understanding of this Irish chair. I’ve been making this chair form for eight years now, and I have continually refined the process to make it simpler and to remove jigs and math.
I think I have finally nailed it.
This year I plan to film the new process. It will replace our existing video for sale in our store. If you bought the old video, you will get the new one for free. Stay tuned.
Hey! Two of my chairmaking friends, en and Jim Crammond, are putting on a Gibson chair class in Michigan starting Sept. 30. They are both great people and chairmakers. If you’ve wanted to build a Gibson chair, this is a great opportunity. Details are below.
— Christopher Schwarz
Join us for an immersive chair making class where you will build an Irish Gibson chair, a vernacular chair form that is known for its comfort and relative simplicity to build; it’s a great first chair or 12th chair! The fact that these simple and distinct chairs were made by farmers and non-professional woodworkers, with limited tools, and with materials that were easily accessible makes this chair a joy to make. In this class you’ll have the opportunity to personalize this chair (vernacular forms invite creative input) as well as pursue tools and methods that suit your setup at home.
Class Details:
Dates: September 30th to October 4th, 2024
Location: Monroe, Michigan (details upon registration)
Cost: $1,000 (Includes cost for workshop, supplies, and lunch). Deposit of $200 to confirm registration. Full payment is due upon arrival to the workshop.
Lunch will be provided daily
What You Will Learn: In this intensive five-day workshop, you will delve into the craft of chair making with two chair makers with a combined history of 25 years in the craft. Whether you’re a novice or seasoned woodworker, this class will teach you the fundamentals of chairmaking and set you up to continue chairmaking at home.
Tools: Learn to use the froe, lathe, drawknife, shaving horse, bench plane and other tools.
Design: Understand concepts such as rake, splay and sight lines that influence chair design and comfort.
Techniques: steam bending, splitting and riving, staked tenon joinery and more, adapting techniques to suit your setup at home.
Reserve Your Spot Today: Spots are very limited (only five!) so sign up early.
I’m always a bit surprised by what sells well each year. I look at our sales every morning, track inventory and try to figure out our next step. But rarely do I step back and look at the big sales picture. Except for today. Here are the 10 best selling Lost Art Press/Crucible products of 2023 by units sold.
“Sharpen This” This pocket book came out in September 2022, yet we’ve already printed 14,000 of these little suckers. It is my fastest-selling book (whatever that’s worth). If you buy it from us, I sign each copy personally and we include a PG-13 Slightly Naughty sticker.
“The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” Another surprise, really. This has to be the best woodworking book for the bathroom. You can flip to any page and learn something interesting about finishing formulas, wood species or 18th century mouldings listed by furniture style.
“The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke” This book continues to sell thanks to the fact that 1) It’s a simply amazing read and 2) The incredible popularity of the PBS series about Dick. The author took care of Dick’s cabin for years and was the perfect (and authorized) person to write this book.
“The Essential Woodworker” We reissued this book in 2010 with the help of the author, Robert Wearing, and it is now in its 10th printing. This book continues to sell because you can read it in a short afternoon and it connects all the dots with handwork. It is simple (but not simplistic), perfectly illustrated and simply the right book for those who want to work with hand tools.
“Make a Gibson Chair” Video. This one isn’t a surprise. The video came out this year and shows how to make one of the most comfortable (and simple) stick chairs ever.
“Workshop Wound Care” Another great and much-needed pocket book. This book should be in every shop. Not because it will help LAP financially or make you a better woodworker, but because you will need its advice some day when things go wrong. Not if – when.
“Crucible Engraving Tool” We’ve sold more than 1,000 of these suckers, and I can’t wait to see what woodworkers do with them. We are out of stock this minute, but we have another 500 on the way in the next week or two. So sign up to get notified when we restock.
“Euclid’s Door” This book, released in 2021, had a slow start but picked up steam in 2023. “Euclid’s Door” teaches you practical geometry as you build some very useful and accurate wooden shop tools. It’s fun and eye-opening. And the next book in the series (coming in 2024) will bring even more fans into the “By Hand & Eye” fold.
“Karvsnitt” Jogge Sundqvist’s second book with Lost Art Press dives into the world of chip-carving, spells and color. Like all of Jogge’s work, this book is engaging, fun and inspiring.
“With the Grain” Again, what the heck? This book is in its seventh printing and continues to sell and sell. I think I know why: It’s a no-nonsense guide to what you need to know about wood technology at the bench. There are much more scientific books out there, but you won’t find a more practical one.
The new video includes another trick with a washer.
I’ve just uploaded a six-minute video for those who purchased the “Make a Gibson Chair Video.” The new video shows two tricks I came up with that make the chair easier to build and a little stronger. I also show how to scribe the shoulders of the legs’ tenons to the seat for a clean look.
If you purchased this video, you should have received a notification of the update via email. If you didn’t, first check your spam/junk folder. You also can log into your account with Lost Art Press and see all your video content there. The new video should be at the bottom.
Like all our videos, you can watch them streaming through our site, or you can download them to any device. We have no Digital Rights Management (DRM) junk on the video files.
One of the tricks – my favorite – uses a 1” washer and makes fitting the back sticks a heck of a lot easier. Also, I’m crushing your head.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The Gibson chair video has an introductory price of $50 until June 19. After that, the price will be $75.
The Irish Gibson chair is a feat of ingenuity, simplicity and geometry. Its radical angles and spare construction suggest it is an odd place to sit. But everyone who has sat in one will tell you this: It is remarkably comfortable.
I first encountered Gibson chairs through my research on vernacular furniture. And I wondered the same thing. How could this chair be sittable? So I spent a year recreating a Gibson chair with the help of hundreds of photographs and a few books.
My cheap copy sat remarkably well, and it altered the gears in my head when it comes to chair geometry. Intrigued, I went to Ireland in 2019 and studied a lot of Gibson chairs, including some beautiful ones in the collection of Mark Jenkinson. Then I came home and started building lots of Gibsons, fueled by my hands-on experience with the chairs.
I made some changes to suit the way I work and the way I look at chairs. I make no claims that my chairs are “authentic” (stupid word, that). But I understand the chair and have made quite a few to earn that understanding.
A cheap construction laser can save you hours of layout.
This year I decided to make a video on how I build these chairs. Gibsons are quite unlike the other stick chairs I make. And I have devised novel ways to use cheap lasers to make your life easier when building them (meaning you don’t have to build a lot of complicated jigs).
Megan and I spent a lot of May 2023 filming the process, condensing it into a video that:
Will not waste your time. I dislike prattling on and on in a video. I tried to make this video 100 percent meat – no gristle.
Will show you how to build the chair and avoid common pitfalls. I have made a lot of mistakes while figuring out the Gibson. I am happy to show you my scars and detours.
Is somewhat enjoyable to watch. In our video there are cats, self-deprecating jokes, the breaking of the fourth wall and other small amusements that will, I hope, keep you awake.
Has the information you need. The video comes with all the patterns (hand-drawn by me) and cutting lists and sources so you will get up to speed quickly.
This chair is a good first chair. Yes, it’s a bit angular. But you can do it. You just have to commit.
We are releasing this 3-hour video today with the introductory price of $50. That includes all the videos and all the drawings and patterns. All free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) so you can put the video on your laptop, iPad, phone and desktop with no restrictions.
You can read more about it here and order it if you like. After June 18, the price will be $75 forever.
