Category: The Anarchist’s Design Book

I’ve just finished up designing the third new chapter for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” on the boarded settle chair. (What is the deal with this expansion? Here’s an FAQ.)

Thanks to all the odd angles, this boarded chair is great fun to build and is surprisingly comfortable. And the lumber bill is only $55. It is an imposing piece of furniture, and the bold curves I cut on the sides only make it more eye-catching. To turn down the volume a bit, I painted the sides black, which allows the chair to recede a bit in a room.

This design is based on historical examples from Northern Wales and Northern England that I’ve seen in furniture books. Sometimes called “lambing chairs,” many of the originals are in pine.

Below is the link to download this chapter. Here are the usual caveats:

• The writing is still a bit rough. Megan Fitzpatrick edited it today, but there might be a few typos we still need to clean up for the print edition.
• The construction drawing is still crude. In the printed version there will be a nice copperplate etching from Briony Morrow-Cribbs in its place.
• This chapter is intended for those who already own the current edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” So this chapter is offered on the honor system. Those who download the chapter without owning the book will be forced to play dice with wombat poop (which is apparently square).

That’s it. Thanks to everyone who has bought the book, and I hope you are enjoying the new chapters. There are two (maybe three) more to go.

ADB-Boarded Settle Chair

Here are the other two chapters (in case you missed them).

Another Free Chapter and More Free Psychoses   

First New Chapter: Staked High Stool

I’ll be in the U.K. (Wales) and Germany for the next couple weeks, so I won’t be blogging as often. Kara and Meghan will pick up my slack.

— Christopher Schwarz   

 

One of the furniture forms I’ve had a long obsession with are settles. These high-back benches were common in early homes and were handy for keeping warm by the fire. One of their variants, the settle chair – is somewhat less common. But it is just as delightful.

These boarded chairs are made from four planks that are nailed or screwed together. And – if you take what you know about stick chairs and apply it to a boarded chair, it can be pretty comfortable. Much more comfortable than the crate or coffin that it resembles.

The trick is to angle almost every joint so the backrest leans back, the chair leans back and the giant boarded sides open up to the sitter like the arms of a mustachioed aunt with boundary issues.

There are 100 ways to build this chair that are difficult. For the last several months, I’ve been tinkering with the construction process to make it as simple and foolproof as possible. Finally, on Friday I decided that drawings and CAD could take me no further. I had to build it.

This chair will be the next new chapter for “The Anarchist’s Design Book” expansion. If you have questions about the expansion, here is an FAQ.

I started with No. 2 common white pine 2x6s from the home center and glued them up into four panels:

1 Seat: 1-1/4” x 26” x 19”
1 Back 1-1/4” x 21-1/2” x 41”
2 Sides 1-1/4” x 19 x 49”

It’s a lot of wood, I know. But 2x6s are cheap. I also knew I was going to cut the side pieces with a decorative pattern, but I wasn’t sure what the pattern would be. Had I known the pattern, I would have glued up the sides in a way that greatly reduced waste.

I could bore you with all the mental gymnastics that came up with the steps to build this chair. If you come up with an easier way to do it with simple tools, I applaud you.

Let’s hit the highlights.

Cut the dados in the side pieces that will hold the seat. These dados are angled 97° off the back, which creates part of the “lean” to the back. The dados are 1/2” deep and start 15” up from the bottom of the side pieces.

Cut or plane a 9° bevel on the back edge of the side pieces. This bevel makes the sides open toward the sitter (remember the aunt joke?).

Screw the back to the sides with No. 9 x 3-1/8” screws. No glue. You will want to disassemble the chair to make things pretty. You can glue it up later if you like.

Glue 5”-wide blocks to the back edge of the sides, creating the back feet. You’ll have to cut the 9° bevel on one long edge of these blocks. Note that I’ve already cut an angle on the bottom of the sides to add some more lean. I recommend you do this at the end of the construction process.

Make the seat fit its hole. Here I’m using pinch sticks to get the measurement of the seat at its narrowest point. Cut the seat to size and fit it in the dados. Screw the sides to the seat.

Cut the decorative profile on the sides. I drew mine with trammel points. The three arcs for the top curves are all a 9-5/8” radius. The curve for the bottom is a 7-1/2” radius. I was trying to imitate the traditional wingback chair with these curves and exaggerated things to make it look more “ersatz hillbilly.”

Clean up the edges. Screw it back together and then see if you like it.

I’ll build a couple more of these chairs with different profiles and then get to work on writing the chapter for the book. This prototype is good enough to get cleaned up and finished. I’ve asked my daughter Katy to paint it – perhaps we’ll offer it for sale here if we’re both satisfied with it.

— Christopher Schwarz

To make things easier for you, I’ve collected all of the supplemental information I’ve released for “The Anarchist’s Design Book” (so far) into a pdf with a short introduction and an appendix on making your own seat templates.

This is available as a free download to anyone who has purchased “The Anarchist’s Design Book” anywhere in the world. We’re on the “Honorable Tortoise” system here. Don’t download it if you haven’t bought the book.

I’ve arranged all these pages into a book that you take to any “print on demand” service to print and bind it as a book for you. You can also download the color cover for it. Here are the links:

ADB_supplement

Supplement_cover

You have my express permission to print out a personal copy or two for yourself. If you sell them, however, I will phone the tortoise.

Here’s what’s in the 70-page supplement:

1. A short introduction to the sometimes drug-addled world of chairmaking
2. A chapter on building a Staked High Stool
3. A chapter on building a Staked Armchair
4. An appendix on making your own seat patterns for the chair.

I hope you find this information easy to use and interesting.

The next project is a settle chair, which I have been sketching for months now. Like all good chairs, it has a secret code I need to crack that will make building it a cinch.

By the way, our next tool at Crucible Tool will be a Chairmaker’s Decoder Ring.

— Christopher Schwarz

I am at work on adding five or six chapters to “The Anarchist’s Design Book” for an expanded edition that we will release in the future. Several customers have asked how this will work. Here are the answers.

Q: What will be in the expanded edition?

The core content of the expanded edition will be the same as the current edition. The additional content will be five projects that I wish I had included in the first edition: a staked high stool, a staked armchair, a boarded settle, a boarded settle chair and a boarded mule chest. These five projects use the same techniques – staked joinery and boarded construction – as in the current edition. In other words, I’m not adding a section on some new (or very old) joinery technique.

Q: When will the expanded edition be available?

We hope to release the new printed edition in late 2019 or early 2020.

Q: Will the five projects be available to people who own the current edition?

Absolutely. Anyone who owns the current edition will be able to download the five additional chapters for free. And they will be able to do this no matter if they bought the book from us or from another retailer. The additional chapters will be in pdf format,  and designed in pages that are identical to the current edition. You will be able to print them out if you like or keep them on your computer.

Q: How will this download work?

Simple. We will have a link in our store for people with the current edition. Click the link and the download will begin. The link will be posted indefinitely.

Q: Will these additional projects feature copperplate etchings from Briony Morrow-Cribbs?

Yes. Briony has agreed to create new copperplate etchings for the expanded edition.

Q: Will the expanded edition cost more than the current edition?

Yes. Adding five more projects will increase the printing cost, so we will need to increase the price of the printed book when the new edition is released.

Q: Will I be able to trade in my old edition for a new one?

Sorry but no.

Q: You are releasing some of the chapters in advance as they are completed. Why?

Several reasons. They are going to be released for free, so why not do it now? Second, readers have been asking for them as photos of the projects have appeared on the blog and our Instagram feed. And third, readers might catch a mistake or two before we go to press.

— Christopher Schwarz

You can now download a free pdf of my Staked Armchair project if you have purchased a copy of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” This download is given on the honor system. If you already own this book, no harm will come to you by clicking the link below.

If, however, you have not purchased “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” you will suffer a curse that involves an Aldabra tortoise with multiple felony convictions.

Here’s the link:

ADB Staked Armchair

The design for this chair is regulated by the lumber industry. When I design a piece of furniture from scratch, such as this chair, I look carefully at the materials available to the workaday woodworker. For example, asking you to buy 12/4 spalted sapele for the crest is a bit silly. This chair can be built with one chunk of 8/4 red oak and some 5/8” dowels from the home center. Nothing fancy.

In short, I try to design my pieces around common lumber sizes so that the design can be built in both Los Angeles and Baltimore without too much fuss.

For many years, I wished that I didn’t impose restrictions like this on myself. What if I designed a project based on my desires alone, and I could use whatever crazy materials I wanted? I tried that approach for a while and it was uninspiring. For some reason, I prefer to work within strict limitations of what wood species are available, what lumber sizes are common and how few operations/tools are required.

This is my sport. And projects like this bring me a little satisfaction.

The wood for this chair is less than $50 – way less than $50 if you are frugal. You don’t need a drawknife, steambox, shavehorse, froe or hatchet to make this chair. Instead, you need mostly furniture-making tools plus a scorp and travisher to saddle the seat. The wood is from any lumberyard. You can build it with hand tools. But if you have a band saw you’ll find the work goes faster.

It sits remarkably well for an all-wood chair. I’ve had these chairs sitting around the shop for the last several months and lots of people have sat in them and offered feedback. The No. 1 comment: I didn’t expect this chair to be this comfortable.

The trick is the geometry, of course, plus knowing your way around the lumbar region of the human body. The armbow is designed to support the lumbar (a fact that surprises most sitters) with the crest rail hovering slightly above the curve of your shoulders.

The seat is lightly saddled to avoid casting your buttocks like a Jell-O salad. And the “hands” of the armbow are set back from where you would expect them on an armchair by a couple inches. This small change affects how your forearms interact with the chair – for the better in my opinion.

So if you’ve ever wanted to build a Welsh stick chair, this chair is an excellent introduction to the form. If you are into Windsors, this chair has a few lessons, but you are going to need some more estrogen to get the job done with the feminine baluster turnings (this is only my opinion; many people of sound mind love Windsor chairs).

So download the chapter – at the peril of the highly disturbed tortoise if you don’t own “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” And think it over. Chairs aren’t so hard. Even I can build them, and I’m just a journalist who grew up in Arkansas.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Anyone who complains about typos will also get a visit from the tortoise.