Category: Chair Chat

Today we are opening up the list for people who want to attend our Chair Chat™ class at the Lost Art Press storefront Oct. 10-14, 2022, with me, Rudy Everts and Klaus Skrudland.

The class is $1,300 per student (plus materials). The attendees will be determined by a random drawing on Wednesday, July 6. Here’s how you can sign up. Please read the following with care.

The class is for people who wish to build a vernacular stick chair. We’ve had several people ask us if they could take the class and instead build a ladderback, Hans Wegner chair, Windsor chair or other factory chair that involves bent laminations, steambending or factory methods.

The answer is, unfortunately, no. We don’t have the equipment, jigs or time to make one of these chairs. We would fail your expectations. We are equipped to make any stick chair (that we know of), as long as it’s vernacular.

To sign up for the drawing, send an email to: lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, July 6, 2022. Please use the subject line of “Chair Chat Class” and include the following information (incomplete forms will be discarded).

Your name (first and last)

Your phone number (this is only to contact you in case email doesn’t go through)

One sentence about the chair you would like to build. (It can be as simple as “Welsh comb back” or “Irish armchair” or “whatever.”)

How you would like to build your chair. Choose one:

1. Almost entirely by hand
2. A balance of hand and machine methods
3. Almost entirely by machine

This last detail is important as we need to get a mix of students so that people aren’t waiting in line to use the chopping block or the band saw.

Students will be allowed to bring their own materials. Or we can supply them for a fee (likely about $200 per chair). More details about the class and the instructors can be found here.

After the drawing occurs, don’t despair if you aren’t picked. We will keep your name handy in case students need to cancel (it happens). 

Klaus, Rudy and I are looking forward to this class and sharing everything we know about chairmaking, eating too much fried chicken and drinking just the right amount of beer. It will be a fun week.

— Christopher Schwarz

This fall, we will hold a chairmaking class at Lost Art Press the likes of which I’ve never seen. Six students will be taught by three instructors – Rudy Everts, Klaus Skrudland and me – in a way that will allow students to explore stick chairs on their own terms.

Students will design and make stick chairs using a full range of methods available today, from entirely hand-powered all the way up to full-on electrified. (To be fair, we cannot offer the full gamut of techniques. We don’t have a CNC router, and we will not teach cutting tenons with buck teeth.)

Put another way, we will help you develop a stick chair of your own design using the library of templates at our shop or new shapes. Then you can build the chair using the techniques that you want to learn. Want to split out your parts with a froe and shape them with an ax? Rudy and Klaus have you covered. Want to use a band saw to speed things along? Klaus or Chris will help. Want to batch process hundreds of legs for a production run? Chris will show you how.

Want to learn lathe work? We have you covered. Shaving with a drawknife and spokeshave? Yup. Saddling with an angle grinder? Adze? Scorp? Travisher? Yes, yes and yes. If we know it, we will show you how to do it.

The class should be a bit chaotic, intense and exhausting. Oh, and it will be Rated PG-13. If you have ever read Chair Chat™, then you know that salty potatoes are always on the menu. I also suspect it will be the most fun you’ve ever had while woodworking. Klaus and Rudy are both insanely talented and hilarious. Plus I know lots of jokes about the Tax Act of 1894.

If you are interested, here are the details. The class will be held Oct. 10-14 at the Lost Art Press storefront in Covington, Ky. The tuition will be $1,300 per student plus materials (you can bring your own or we can provide them for a fee).

We have room for six students. You must be fully vaccinated against COVID to attend (this building is my home and my business). To make things as equitable as possible, we will fill those six slots via a random drawing. In July, we will open up registration for the class. After registration closes, we will select six students at random. We will post more details about the drawing and the class in the coming months. 

But for now, just make sure that you don’t schedule any elective surgeries, weddings or “me time” for that week in October.

Klaus, Rudy and I are very excited about this class. I hope you will consider joining us.

— Christopher Schwarz