I just completed this staked armchair this morning and it will go out to a customer tomorrow (I hope).
When I designed this chair for the revised edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” the goal was to make a staked armchair that was decently good-looking but as easy as possible for a new chairmaker to build.
As a result, many of the details of the chair are based on what sort of material is available to every woodworker. For example: The crest rail – sometimes called the “comb” — is cut from 8/4 solid material. I think it looks quite good as-is, but my typical instinct is to make combs from something thicker or to steam-bend them. But 8/4 material is simple to come by. In fact, the entire chair is built from one board of 8/4 oak and seven dowels.
Yes, the sticks start out as dowels that have been selected for dead-straight grain. Again, dowels are not my first choice when designing a chair, but using them removes a barrier faced by many beginning chairmakers. Beginners might not have access to a shavehorse, lathe with a steadyrest or even rived material. The dowels are scraped and shaved so they have a little entasis, but yeah, they’re dowels.
I’ve now built a bunch of these chairs and have (I hope) made almost all the common mistakes this design presents. So I’m ready to teach classes on how to build it (the first class is in March) and complete the chapter on this chair for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.”
I’m also ready to push this design in a different direction. My sketchbook is clogged with details related to this chair that I have put off as I refined this single form. My next stick chair will be in black walnut and have significant changes to the armbow, doubler, stick arrangement and crest rail. I hope it’s not a complete fiasco. If it is or it’s not, you’ll find out here.
Several people have asked for more construction details on the white oak stick chair I posted on the blog this morning. Many of the components and processes are similar to those in the Staked Armchair chapter I posted on the blog late last year.
There are, however, some important differences. This chair has an H-stretcher that is 12-1/2” from the underside of the seat. The resultant angles of the legs are also different than shown in the chapter. The resultant angles for both the front and rear legs is 22°.
Here is the cutting list:
1-Seat 1-3/8 x 16 x 20
4-Legs 1-3/8 x 1-3/8 x 20
2-Side stretchers 1 x 1 x 20 (stretchers taper to 5/8 through-tenons at the ends)
1-Medial stretcher 1 x 1 x 18 (stretcher tapers to 5/8 blind tenons at the ends)
1-Crest 1-3/4 x 5 x 15 (curve cut from solid)
2-Arms 3/4 x 7 x 22 (cut from solid)
1-Doubler 3/4 x 5 x 16 (cut from solid)
7-Dowels 5/8 dia. x 36
Hope this helps you design your own chair. With this format of chair, no two chairs are alike.
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.
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.
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:
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:
A short introduction to the sometimes drug-addled world of chairmaking
A chapter on building a Staked High Stool
A chapter on building a Staked Armchair
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.
