Category: The Anarchist’s Design Book

 

First-time chairmakers often confuse the terms “rake” and “splay” – and never mind the other names for the other angles in a chair.

After I took my first chairmaking class 11 years ago, I made up this little explanation for myself so I wouldn’t forget.

Chairs are like saws.

When you look at a saw from the side, you can see the teeth raking forward or backward (depending on the filing). When you look at a chair from the side, you are seeing the rake of the legs. And chair legs can rake forward or back – just like sawteeth.

When you look a saw from the front, you can see the teeth bent out from the sawplate. This is called the set. When you look at a chair from the front, you can see the legs splay out (they never splay inward that I know of). “Set” and “splay” both begin with “s.”

OK, it’s not the most perfect explanation, but it has prevented me from mixing up the terms for many years now.

— Christopher Schwarz

The nice thing about geometry (aside from sitting next to Cris Titsworth) is that you can perform some operations that look difficult with surprising ease.

For example, let’s look at my “wireframe” model for my next project. With needlenose pliers I can adjust the rake and splay of the legs, which are made from 12-gauge wire, until I’m pleased with how the legs look from all directions.

Then, using some formulas picked up from old books (see above, I can’t believe I am showing you this)…. I can dial in my angles.

Then it’s a cinch to knock out the finished piece:

Of course, I can adjust the legs to produce these simple variants.

Or, by simply changing the value of X, produce this:

— Christopher Schwarz

Perhaps this is because my shop is small, but I don’t like building full-size mockups of projects during the design process. When I’ve built full-size models in the past, I felt bad about wasting materials. Cheap pine could actually be used in a piece of furniture, and pink insulation could be protecting Hello Kitty from the cold.

But building half-size models is OK for some reason in my head. I can cut most parts from scraps in my waste bin. I use wire (clothes hangers) and cardboard (waste from boxes) at times. And the components are large enough to make it easy for me to imagine how the piece would look.

Today I finished up a half-scale model of a staked-leg backstool I’m working on for my “Furniture of Necessity” book. After dialing in the rake and splay of the legs, I concluded that this piece of furniture was so unique that it should bear my name – the Christopher Schwarz (TM) Staked Backstool.

No one has come up with a Backstool like this one with these particular angles, and so I, Christopher Schwarz, would like to share it with you so you can feel the full-on Schwarz when it comes to Schwarz Rake, Schwarz Splay, Schwarz Sightlines and Schwarz Resultant Angles.

To lay this out, you’ll need to use a special technique that I have developed after more than 35 years of examining angles as they result to other angles, plus segments, vertices and Cris Titsworth, who sat next to me in high school geometry.

That technique involves setting the angle of a leg and determining its position in relation to line that is struck off the perpendicular axis of the spheres of influence that are tangent to the Titsworth Twins, who were nice and would play Lifesaver games on the band bus but were not as hot as their older sister, Cris.

You can sight this angle using an ordinary try square, laid flat on the bench and sighted so the leg looks 90°. Then you set your bevel gauge to an angle that appears in line with the leg and try square.

This three-legged Christopher Schwarz (TM) chair is fondly dedicated to Joe Kent Wagg. Thanks to its three legs, Joe would be unable to tip backward in the chair when Ms. Widemann would duct tape him to the chair.

And scene.

— Christopher Schwarz

Quick quiz. There are no right answers. What do you see?

Women baking bread?

A castration?

A feast?

A martyrdom?

Work?

A drinking party?

Doctors consulting with one another?

Or do you see a forgotten way of making furniture?

— Christopher Schwarz

“In all its horrible eccentricity of non-descript Gothic, worse Chinese, and inane rococo, combined though they be with the most exquisite workmanship and occasionally a quaint gracefulness, Chippendale’s style is not in favour with those whose training enables them to discriminate between the true and false in design.”

— D. Adamson, “A Chat About Furniture,” Work magazine, March 23, 1889

Writing a woodworking book is perhaps the dumbest way to make a living. These stupid things take years to do correctly. Mistakes are easy to make and difficult to catch. You have to work quite hard to avoid sounding like a Samsung instruction booklet.

It is honestly the most difficult form of writing I’ve ever attempted. And the audience is tiny.

But some days you get a glimpse of something amazing that touches almost every civilized person who ever lived. It’s a bright string, to steal the phrase of Stephen King. And if you follow the string, no matter where it leads through a dark forest, you will end up in a clearing where you can see for miles, over hills and forests and to the ocean.

All that is usually launched by a single moment. My first book, “Workbenches…,” was set in motion by a single plate in “l’Art du menuisier” and a comment by Dave Raeside, one of my earliest students. “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” came to me while on a run in Maine when I wished for a book that didn’t exist when I was 11. “Campaign Furniture” came about by stumbling into a now-closed antique store in Charleston, S.C., with my dad.

“Furniture of Necessity” was set in motion by a single early image sent to me by Jeff Burks. (No, we don’t know where he is, but we miss him.) I can’t even bear to show you the image because I don’t want to spoil the shock of encountering a hidden truth.

I don’t want to build this up too much because it will seem obvious when you encounter it. People will claim they have been way ahead of me (or way behind) for a long time on this issue. That’s cool. I’m just the guy with the flashlight.

Today I legged up a sawbench, which is the first project in “Furniture of Necessity.” As I felt the sawbench’s pine top flex and give way to the oak legs when I hammered them in I knew I was on the downhill slide on this book.

I have the bright string in hand, now I just have to make sure I don’t let go during the next 12 months.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. For those of you who didn’t like Roorkee Chat No. 1, I can only say that you should not poke the bear.