The set of templates makes it easier to build the Staked Armchair from “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” but they are also a good starting point for many of the chairs in “The Stick Chair Book.” The seat and arm shape is the same, as are the leg locations and stick locations. So the templates are a good place to start exploring chairmaking.
(FYI, we also carry full-size paper patterns for the five chairs in “The Stick Chair Book.” These need to be adhered to your own wood and cut out.
The templates are laser cut in Ohio. If you want a set, don’t tarry. We might not stock these permanently as getting the raw material is getting harder and harder.
This is an experiment. A fair number of readers have asked us to restock the full-size chair wooden templates for the Staked Armchair from “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” We carried these templates for a couple years and discontinued them after sales cratered.
The templates are $49 and come with six full-size laser-cut templates for making the four-stick Staked Armchair. Unlike our earlier templates, these are made from 1/8” Baltic birch so they will be more durable.
These templates are great for any beginning chairmaker. And many of the parts are compatible with the armchairs from “The Stick Chair Book.” The seat and arm shape is the same, as are the leg locations and stick locations. So the templates are a good place to start exploring chairmaking.
(FYI, we also carry full-size paper patterns for the five chairs in “The Stick Chair Book.” These need to be adhered to your own wood and cut out.)
The templates are laser cut in Ohio. If you want a set, don’t tarry. We might not stock these permanently.
We make sliding bevels here at Crucible Tool, and we love them. But you don’t need them for making chairs.
Once when I couldn’t find my sliding bevel, I made some blocks of wood with fixed angles sawn on the ends. These guided my drill bit while making mortises. A few years later, I saw an improvement on the idea in a photo of someone’s shop (I cannot remember where). These doo-dads (shown above) were in the background – I don’t think they were even discussed in the article. But they are brilliant.
It’s basically a piece of wood (3/4” x 1-1/2” x 5” or so) with a groove plowed down the middle. The groove is the same width as the thickness of hardboard (usually 1/8” thick). Then you cut the desired angles onto the ends of bits of hardboard and slide them into the grooves.
The wooden base keeps the tool stable. The removable hardboard means you can swap out angles for different chairs. The two stationary bevels shown in the photo above do all the leg angles for the staked armchair in “The Anarchist’s Design Book” plus about half the chairs in “The Stick Chair Book.”
The nice thing about these stationary bevels is they don’t lose their setting when you drop them off the bench.
I haven’t built a four-stick chair for a long time. Not because I don’t like the form, but because I have been focused on chairs from “The Stick Chair Book.”
But as I sorted through the load of beautiful bog oak I got from fellow woodworker Andy Brownell, I realized something. I could squeeze two chairs out of the material. But barely. So thanks to some creative cutting I wound up with parts for both a six-stick chair and (squeakily) a four-stick chair.
Because I was unsure about the material (its stability, strength, color), I decided to begin by building a chair form I could make while sleeping.
This four-stick chair is made from bog oak that is between 2,000 and 4,000 years old that was excavated in Poland. The seat is 16-3/4” off the floor. The back sticks lean 15° off the seat. And the seat is pitched back two fingers off level. So this chair is very nice for both dining and relaxing – a tough wire to walk.
All the wood is cut from one log, but the color and texture varies throughout all the parts. As a result, the surface finish was a huge challenge. No matter how much effort I threw at getting perfect surfaces, some areas just refused to cooperate (such as the front tenon on the left hand). So there are small areas of this chair that are imperfect, though the form as a whole is completely sound.
The wood is stunning – almost impossible to capture in photographs. It varies from a dusty charcoal to an English brown oak to areas that have a faint olive cast to them. I’ve spent about an hour just taking in the colors on the chair’s surfaces.
All the joints are assembled with hide glue, which is easily repairable by future generations. The finish is a beeswax and linseed oil blend, which is free of toxic solvents and is also easily repairable.
I’m selling this chair via a silent auction. To bid, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, March 9. In the email, please include your name, your shipping address, your phone number (this is used for a trucking quote only) and your bid. There is no minimum bid, and the highest bid wins. The winner will be contacted on Wednesday after the auction closes.
On shipping: You can pick up the chair at our storefront, or I will deliver it for free within 100 miles of Cincinnati. Otherwise, I can ship it via common carrier to addresses in the continental U.S. This usually costs between $200 and $300, depending on where you live.
There is one topic in woodworking where I have changed my mind completely – 180° – from when I began woodworking. And that is with finishing.
My first woodworking job was finishing doors in a factory where we used industrial (read: nasty) coatings. And when I signed on at Popular Woodworking in 1996, we used a Binks 2000 system to spray lacquer and all other sorts of solvent-based finishes.
And I loved it.
These finishes produced outstanding results in minutes instead of days. I could finish an entire bedroom suite in a few hours with a spray gun and fast-drying lacquer. Yes, I wore a face mask. And we had a fantastic spray booth. But that’s not enough. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are prevalent in many woodworking finishes. And though the home woodworker is probably OK if he or she uses them every couple months in a well-ventilated area, I have turned my back on finishes with unhealthy solvents.
Why? Perhaps it was one too many headaches after spraying lacquer, or cleaning something with acetone or xylene. Now, I try to use finishes where the solvent is water or something nearly as harmless.
When I did this, I was afraid I was doomed to use some difficult finishing processes. It turns out, however, that safe finishes can also be fast and easy. When it comes to paint, a good place to start is milk paint. The following is excerpted from the “back matter” – this is one of the appendices – of “The Anarchist’s Design Book: Expanded Edition,” by Christopher Schwarz.
— Christopher Schwarz
About Milk Paint
First thing, milk paint is essentially a myth… I have never seen anything called ‘milk paint’ advertised in period publications (of the nineteenth century), it doesn’t show up on probate inventories or other historical records and is apparently entirely a made up 20th century idea. — Stephen A. Shepherd, “Shellac, Linseed Oil, & Paint” (Full Chisel Press, 2011)
The milk paint used for in-door work dries in about an hour, and the oil which is employed in preparing it entirely loses its smell in the state to which it is reduced by its union with the lime. One coating will be sufficient for places that are already covered with any colour…. — Henry Carey Baird, “The painter, gilder, and varnisher’s manual …” (M. Taylor – London, 1836)
Milk-based paint has been around a long time – I’ve found dozens of sources that describe how to make it from the 1800s and earlier.
It was inexpensive, didn’t smell, dried fast and could be made with commonly available materials – milk and lime. Some recipes added linseed oil, pigment, egg yolks (to give the paint more sheen) or white pitch (to make it weather-resistant).
I’ve used it for almost 20 years now on furniture and can attest that milk paint looks good, wears well and is not going to expose you to nasty solvents. You can make your own – there are lots of recipes online – or you can buy a commercial powder that you mix with water. If you live in the United Kingdom, casein-based paints are available from stores that cater to the restoration trade.
Most beginners will opt to buy the commercial powder because it’s foolproof and comes in lots of nice colors.
If you go this route, here are my instructions for mixing the stuff:
Throw away the manufacturer’s instructions.
Mix the paint 2:1 – warm water to powder.
Mix your proto-paint for 10 minutes to ensure all the lumps get dissolved.
Let the paint sit for 30 minutes. It might thicken a bit.
Strain the paint through cheesecloth and into your paint tray or bucket.
After that, it’s just like using a very thin paint. It’s not like latex or oil paints that have a lot of body or oiliness. It’s like applying colored water.
It dries quickly, so I apply the paint with a small foam roller then use a natural-bristle brush to push the color into the details and corners. Then I “tip off” any flat surfaces.
After one coat, you will have a translucent colored surface. If you applied the paint with any skill, you can stop painting here if you like the look (I do).
If you want things more opaque, then sand the first coat with a #320-grit sanding sponge, dust off the project and apply the second coat.
This coat should obscure most of the wood grain, but not all. Repeat the sanding and painting if you want a third coat.
Cheap sandpaper. A folded paper bag is a great tool to smooth a milk-painted surface. And it won’t cut through the color.
Once the color is laid on, you have a choice: Do you add a topcoat of some other finish to it or not? The raw painted surface will be dead flat. If you like this (I do), you can smooth the painted surface with a folded brown paper bag and call it done. If you want some sheen or a deeper color, smooth the paint with the paper bag and add a coat of boiled linseed oil, wax or varnish. This will make the finish look less chalky.
As always, make a sample board if you are unsure of the look you want or if you are unfamiliar with a finishing product. I know you won’t do this, but I am obligated to beat my head against this particular wall.
