Category: The Anarchist’s Design Book

According to my notes, this is my fourth attempt at building an armchair for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” And to be honest, I don’t know how many sketches I made of this design – probably 80 to 100.

Some of my designs failed for technical reasons. Others were too complex to ask of a first-time chairmaker. This design, however, presses all the right buttons. It is built with off-the-rack lumber using a toolkit that doesn’t require many specialty tools.

The wood is kiln-dried. You don’t need a shavehorse, lathe, steambox or even a drawknife. It’s built using standard timber sizes you can find at any lumberyard. The crest rail, for example, is sawn out of workaday 8/4 red oak – nothing special or expensive.

After gluing up the chair this afternoon, I made a set of detailed wooden patterns so I can replicate the design. These patterns will help me do two things: write the chapter on the chair and teach three classes in 2019 on building it.

Indeed, after a few years off, I’ve decided to teach a few classes in 2019 – one at our storefront, one in Indiana and one in the United Kingdom. I’ll post details on the classes and registration when they become available this fall.

I’m eager to share the design for this chair. Even if you don’t want to take a class with me (there are only so many squirrel jokes a person can take), I’ll be publishing the complete plans for this chair. They will be available for a free download for anyone who has purchased “The Anarchist’s Design Book” from us or any of our retailers.

Those plans probably won’t be available for another year – at least. I still have to build four or five more projects for the expansion. But this chair was the most difficult design, and I’m glad it’s behind me. Well, almost behind me. I still need to paint it.

— Christopher Schwarz

Sometimes I get asked if I use dowels for the spindles in my chairs. And sometimes I answer: “Sometimes.”

Dowels can be a crappy way to make a chair, just like lumberyard wood can be a crappy way to make a seat. Or cow tongue can be a crappy way to make a nice goulash.

For me, it all comes down to how the material is cut and dried. I cannot always get rivable material for my chairs, and so I will cut it out on the band saw, making sure the grain is arrow straight through the thickness and length. This wastes a little wood, but once you get good at picking stock at the lumberyard (hint, look at the edges), you can find dang straight stuff.

And if I can find dowels (home center dowels even! For shame!) where the grain is arrow straight, then what’s the harm? I will dry them, compress the ends and shape them with a gunstock scraper to taper them – just like its rived cousin.

I know this ain’t pure, and the Greenwood Gods are frowning or whittling out a spear to chuck my direction. But I think this is a pragmatic and valid path to build a folk chair. If you select your stock with care – in the forest or at the home center – and your understand the material, you can build a chair.

Don’t let your limitations stop you from making a chair. Work with what you have. If you can get a log, get a log. If you can’t get a log, get straight stuff.

Today I went to Home Depot to check out their selection of 5/8” oak dowels. I pulled out all 30 and rolled them on the floor, looking for defects and poker-straight grain. (Yes, you will get Evil Eye for this.) I found eight dowels that were either completely straight or had long straight sections. I need only six to build a chair.

I bought them. This saved me about three hours of shaving.

— Christopher Schwarz

One of the parts of my next armchair that I’ve struggled with is the shape of the armbow. On my most recent chair, I used a maple arm that was cold-bend hardwood. It’s a sleek look, but I decided that it was too complex for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.”

So I decided to go back to the first stick chairs I built in 2003 and use a three-piece armbow. This form of arm is chunkier, but you don’t need to bend anything, and it can be really strong if you orient the grain so it follows the curve of the arm.

The armbow is 7/8” thick and 2” wide for the most part. Then it swells to 2-3/8” at the hands. Well, swells isn’t the right word. I began expanding the radius of the outside of the arm along the front 4”. How did I do this? French curves.

Then I used a second french curve to make the front edge of the armbow.

This was not all one flash of inspiration. This was four iterations. Draw it on paper. Cut it out in 5mm underlayment plywood. Stare at it until I hate it. Repeat.

I kept doing this until I didn’t hate it.

Then I cut out the arms in some air-dried locust (thanks Brendan!).

Tomorrow it’s back to working on the seat.

— Christopher Schwarz

Most of my commission work is surprisingly straightforward. People see something on my personal website (christophermschwarz.com) and say: Hey, I’d like you to build that again.

I build it. And I ship it to them.

Sometimes I get a request for something a little unusual. For example, this summer I’m working out the details of a three-tiered campaign chest. And I have a request for some Roorkhee ottomans. But those pieces are based firmly on my existing work.

This year, however, I got a very unusual order for a chair. It went something like this: Build me a chair, but I want it to advance your work as a designer. He gave me some thoughts on the woods he preferred and what he liked about my existing chair designs, but that was it.

I decided to use this opportunity to work out the details of an armchair for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” I took an undercarriage design I’ve been working on for a couple years and refined it some more. Then I made the undercarriage parallel to the floor (instead of the seat), a detail I swiped from Chris Williams’s chairs. I shortened the armbow. Added some spindles. And did a major reshape of the crest rail (sometimes called a “comb”).

The chair looks good. It sits even better. But it’s not the armchair for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” During construction of this chair, I devised a number of ways I could simplify this design so it would be much easier to build. And ease of building is one of the most important principles in the book.

So I am incredibly grateful to this customer who gave me the huge gift of freedom. And even though I failed to produce the bullseye design for “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” this chair is an important stepping stone to that design.

Which I started working on yesterday.

— Christopher Schwarz