I just finished up a stick chair inspired by old Welsh ones I study. This chair’s stretchers are particularly low and oval in cross section. The armbow is rounded throughout (using spokeshaves) and features elliptical coves on the ends of its shoe. Plus the stick arrangement is quite Welsh, with negative space between the short sticks and the long ones.
The chair is suited for lounging, with a slouchy 22° lean to the back sticks and a seat that’s tilted an additional 5° back. The comb is positioned just 10-3/4” above the arm to support the sitter’s shoulders as they lean into the back.
The chair’s seat and arm are red elm, which resists splitting, with the rest of the chair in straight-grained red oak, which is flexible and strong. All the joints are assembled with hide glue, which we make here, and are wedged for durability.
Slightly proud and burnished tenons.
The chair is finished with a soft wax (also made here). It offers a low luster and looks better the more you use the chair. The finish isn’t terribly durable, but it is easily repaired (just add more soft wax). The front legs have painted “socks” on the feet. This is a traditional touch that protects the feet from scuffs and knocks (and looks good).
Compact and comfortable.
How to Buy the Chair
The chair is $1,700. That price includes shipping and crating to anywhere in the lower 48. If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Friday, May 16. Please use the subject line: “Elm chair.” In the email please include your:
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
If you are the “winner,” the chair will be shipped to your door. The price includes the crate and all shipping charges. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)
My chairmaking efforts have been slowed this year by writing projects (“Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” and the revised edition of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”). But coming up I have a low Irish chair and a new chair design that is struggling to be born.
One of the gratifying things about teaching others to build stick chairs are the woodworkers who embrace the craft and grow to work at the same level (or even higher) than the teacher.
One of those woodworkers is Claire Butler, who lives outside Seattle, Wash. Claire has assisted me in teaching two chair classes during the last year and is now making stuff for sale while working a day job.
Earlier this year, Claire built this chair using some gorgeous red elm while assisting me with a class. The chair came out beautifully, it’s as good as my work. And so I offered to sell it on her behalf to help nudge her into the world of full-time furniture making.
Detail of the hand.
The chair is gently raked back 14° for lounging, reading or sitting by the fire. The chair features heavily shaped arms, tapered octagonal stretchers and slightly proud and burnished tenons throughout.
The chair is made from red elm with hickory wedges, a perfect combination for chairmaking. The wood is strong, lightweight and has a difficult interlocked grain that prevents the parts from splitting. The chair’s sticks are shaved and left octagonal. All the tenons are cut slightly proud and burnished. All the chair’s joints are assembled with animal glue, which is reversible, and wedged.
The seat is tilted 5.8°. The seat is 16-3/4” off the floor, making it comfortable for most sitters. The chair is 37-3/4” tall overall.
The chair is finished with a soft wax. It offers a low lustre and looks better the more you use the chair. The finish isn’t terribly durable, but it is easily repaired (just add more soft wax).
How to Buy the Chair
The chair is $1,300. That price includes shipping and crating to anywhere in the lower 48. If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Thursday, May 8. Please use the subject line: “Claire’s Chair.” In the email please include your:
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
If you are the “winner,” the chair will be shipped to your door in a crate built by me and Kale. The price includes the crate and all shipping charges. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)
This is an excellent chance to buy a beautiful and comfortable chair made by an up-and-coming woodworker you are going to hear more from, I’m sure.
In a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column, which is also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years,” Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement. (You can read the entire column here.)
Recently, one of Chris’s chairmaking students, Lo blue, sent us another way to drill sticks for chairs.
So now we want to know: What else have you thought of, tried out and improved upon?
To that end, we’re asking any LAP readers who have built projects from our books to share your ideas for improving the design, construction or finishing of a project. We will feature some of our favorite submissions in our new series, Mind Upon Mind. Those featured will receive a $50 Lost Art Press gift card from us.
To submit:
Include written steps or a summary of your improvement. Write it in a style you, as a reader, would find helpful and easy to understand. But don’t fret too much. We’ll edit it to make you look good, promise.
Include photos to help illustrate your improvement. You don’t need special equipment to do this. Just good lighting and your phone should be OK.
Include your name as you’d like it to appear in print and any links you’d like to share with readers, such as your personal website or Instagram account.
As a great example of the above, here’s Lo’s recent submission, showing a different way to drill sticks for a chair, as detailed in “The Stick Chair Book: Revised Edition.”
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Drilling Short and Long Sticks Lo Style
Well, after drilling the sticks for my armchair at the Lost Art Press workshop with a laser, I wondered – do I really need one? What I didn’t like about using it was how long it seemed to set up the whole ordeal. For each stick you have to move the tripod and laser, line it up, then go back to the chair, line it up and drill on. Also I just don’t want to buy more “things” (I don’t have much storage space in my shared shop). So I set out to come up with another method that so far has worked without fail on two chairs. I’ve never explained a process before but I’ll give it my best shot and hopefully it makes sense.
Things You Need
BBQ skewer or small dowel
Different colored pens
That sticky poster-hanging stuff that’s in the random items section in the grocery store
Marking Your Skewer
The spindle decks of my chairs so far have been 2” wide, so I mark a centerline and go over an inch on both sides. The different colors really do help here. That way, when you’re aiming down, you can match up your measurements. I spaced them 1/8” apart.
Set Up Your Axis
(Maybe that’s what it’s called? I’m not really sure, but hopefully you get what I mean with the photo …)
Snap some lines so you set up your skewer just right, lining up the driver’s side stick with the passenger side stick.
Yep, just like that.
For the back sticks, you can just line up the skewer by eye so it sits right on the 2” marking.
For this one, that meant it had to be angled.
Now, put that sticky stuff on the middle of your skewer jig and get ready to drill.
It was a bit of a challenge to photograph the fine lines of the skewer, but you can just barely see two dashes on the left here. Now, line up your drill very cleanly between the two matching dashes.
Here, for instance, you can see I’m angled a wee bit too far back.
Here, I’m almost a quarter of an inch too far to the right.
Once you line up the dashes between your armbow, drill your top hole and move your skewer to the next stick position. Drill your spindle deck hole. If you’re kinda nervous (like me) you can check with an undersized dowel to see if yah buggered up your drilling …
Well, I didn’t screw it up, great, move on to the next.
And well, that’s it. Personally, moving a skewer from one hole to the next is a lot faster and less stressful than setting up a laser.
Here are all my sticks lined up, pretty darn straight …
Maybe you’re wondering … “But did it work when you put the armbow on?” Yes, I had zero resistance while gluing up, significantly less than when I used the laser.
But … as per usual, I was sure to f%$# something up in this process.
Idiot …
Oooopsy … I drilled into the leg. 🙁
I didn’t get too worked up about it. It’s wood, it can be repaired. When I was at school for luthiery, there was a repair guy who did a lecture and I’ll never forget something he said. Something like, “I don’t repair something to make it look like it never happened, when I’m done, they’ll know it was repaired but repaired well and with care.”
I just plugged a piece of cherry in my little accident.
Here is the final chair.
About the damn ugliest thing I’ve ever made. Good god, I hope to never make anything again that inspires words like “Regal!, Master, I’ve done well in the stock market now I just like to smoke cigars! Conquer!”
This comb-back stick chair is built entirely in American red elm, with the seat, arm and comb made from figured red elm, some of the most difficult wood I have ever saddled.
The chair is raked back for lounging, reading or sitting by the fire. The chair’s features heavily shaped arms, tapered octagonal stretchers and slightly proud and burnished tenons throughout.
I’m offering it for sale via a silent auction. The highest bid includes crating and shipping the chair to your door anywhere in the lower 48 states of the U.S. With no additional fees or charges. Details on the sale are at the bottom of this entry. First, some notes about the chair.
The chair is made from red elm, which is my favorite wood for chairmaking. The wood is strong, fairly lightweight and has a difficult interlocked grain that prevents the parts from ever splitting. The chair’s sticks are shaved and left octagonal. All the tenons are cut slightly proud and burnished. All the chair’s joints are assembled with animal glue, which is reversible, and wedged with hickory wedges selected for arrow-straight grain.
The seat is tilted 6.6°, with the chair’s back tilted 28° off the seat. The seat is 16-3/4” off the floor, making it comfortable for most sitters. The chair is 38-3/4” tall overall.
The chair is finished with a soft wax finish that I make here in our workshop. It offers a low lustre and looks better the more you use the chair. The finish isn’t terribly durable, but it is easily repaired (just add more soft wax).
Like all my chairs, I make them as best I can, but most of the work is by hand. So you will find an occasional stray tool mark or tiny imperfection. These are not left intentionally, but they are the result of hand work.
How to Buy the Chair
The chair is being sold via a silent auction. If you wish to buy the chair, send your bid via email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, April 24. Please use the subject line: “Elm Chair.” The opening bid is $500. In the email please include your:
Bid
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
If you are the highest bidder, the chair will be shipped to your door. The price includes the crate and all shipping charges. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)
Good news: Alexander Brothers is now selling a new stick chair kit for the Curved Back Armchair in “The Stick Chair Book.” The kit supplies all the parts you need in red elm (my favorite chair wood) for $295. The kit will also build the similar Irish armchair featured in Fine Woodworking magazine last year.
Alexander Brothers does a fantastic job of selecting straight grain for the sticks and legs. I trust them to pick wood for me. So if finding the wood for a stick chair has been holding you back from building one, this kit can fix that problem.
Alexander Brothers carries kits for many chairs and even Megan’s Dutch tool chest. Here’s a link to see the other kits.
