When I teach chairmaking, many students are hesitant to cut the underbevel on the band saw. It’s a straightforward and safe operation. The only trick is learning how to steer the seat. This short video shows how I go about it. Your first underbevel might look a little rough, but by the third one you’ll be an expert.
— Christopher Schwarz
No matter how many words I write about reaming holes, my message doesn’t seem to get through. People ream for way too long, which burnishes the hole and cooks the reamer.
So I made this short video that shows how I ream holes and correct ones that are off. I hope this video helps any Baby Reamers along.
— Christopher Schwarz
When chairmaker Chris Williams became concerned about brash wood, he devised a test to detect it. Put the stick up on blocks and whack it with a mallet.
Brash wood, which is very brittle, will usually snap in two.
I took Chris’s idea and expanded it. I now use “The Sledgehammer Test” to select wood for overall fitness for a high-stress application, such as a chair in a cowboy movie (surely all those chairs were made from brash wood). I perch a sample stick shaved down to the desired size on two 4x4s. Then I smack the middle of the stick with a metal mallet – hard.
The results can be comical. Some woods are almost indestructible – a 1/2”-diameter x 26” straight-grain ash stick will bounce the mallet right back into your face. And I’ve been able to break 3” x 3” x 24″ sticks of brash red oak like they were Twix candy bars.
Today I started making an Irish chair out of some European oak. Some of the grain was dead-straight but had some small hairline cracks. Some pieces didn’t have cracks. So I cut some samples to 1-1/8” x 1-1/8” (the finished size in the chair) and hit them with a sledge. For fun, I also took some European oak that I used for the seat that had about 10° of grain runout. I knew it wouldn’t survive the sledge, but it makes for a good video.
You can see the results above.
I have found the Sledgehammer Test to also be an excellent teaching tool. I recently had five professional woodworkers in the shop, and I showed them how to pick and saw wood for chairs. After they selected the wood for their sticks, we submitted the sticks to the Sledgehammer Test. The woodworkers quickly picked up on what the words “dead-straight grain” mean.
I know this test isn’t scientific, but it is practical. Even the Forest Products Laboratory has tested woods for brashness with an impact test – so I don’t think it’s only an excuse to hit things with a sledge.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Shameless plug: You can read more about the Sledgehammer Test and how to pick wood for chairs in “The Stick Chair Book.“
The latest issue of Quercus Magazine is an important one. In the March/April 2022 issue, Editor Nick Gibbs pays tribute to chairmaker John Brown. It’s a heartfelt, first-person account of his work and friendship with JB, and it fills in a lot of interesting details about their working relationship.
Most importantly, it is an unromantic account, much like Chris Williams’s outstanding book, “Good Work.” As JB’s life recedes into the past, I have watched a lot of mythology get built up around his name, his words and his work.
I never met John Brown, but the people whose stories I trust come from his family, his close friends and his working associates, such as Gibbs and Williams.
As Gibbs writes, JB was a complex character. Occasionally contradictory at times in words and deeds. So Gibbs’s account is very much worth reading. As a bonus, it is beautifully written and is accompanied by essays from Williams, myself and Kenneth Kortemeier.
I won’t spoil it for you. If you are interested, please do pick up a copy.
In addition to the John Brown tribute, the issue is filled with a lot of practical hand-tool information. Some of it quirky, some of it fun. One of the things I like about Quercus is the variety of points of view, both geographically and skill-wise. Oh, and Gibbs likes the written word, so the balance between images and words is my speed.
No, Gibbs didn’t pay me to write this. Nor did he ask. In fact, I’m a little salty with him right now because he is putting me on a future cover. As many of you know, I would rather do naked somersaults down the middle of Main Strasse in Covington with lit sparklers in my butt than have my face appear in print. But I don’t want to be all like “Stop. Don’t. Come Back.”
— Christopher Schwarz
One of the frustrating aspects of editing a woodworking magazine was how little unplowed ground was left to explore. Well, let me put it another way: there was little ground that we were permitted to explore.
Most woodworking magazines stick to a steady diet of the following furniture styles: Vaguely Shaker, Somewhat Arts & Crafts, Kinda Colonial, Maybe Modern and If It’s Got Nails it Must be Country. Why do magazines stick to those styles? Because every survey of magazine readers indicates those are the styles that readers love. Put another way: Why do readers love these styles? Because they are the ones shown in the woodworking press.
Several of us beat our heads against the wall every month at editorial meetings to get people to try something different. From day one I advocated for campaign furniture. David Thiel pushed for Mid-Century Modern, and John the Intern was always on about “Some Kind of Chair.”
Sometimes the overlords threw us a bone, but mostly it was: “Come up with some kind of Shaker case piece for the next issue. And not too intimidating.”
The problem was, of course, that the Shaker style has been explored by every woodworking magazine, book publisher and online personality. The best Shaker pieces have been published a thousand times. The good ones have been published several hundred times. And now we are down to Shaker Toothpicks, Birdcalls and Corn Scrapers, a Comparative Study.
My secret love was (surprise) Welsh stick chairs, but I didn’t dare suggest we explore that topic in the magazine. I did manage to get a couple articles about chairmaking published in the early 2000s, but those seemed like strokes of luck or sheer will.
Today I get to write about what I want, and if no one buys it then it’s my financial problem. So lately I’ve been writing a lot about stick chairs. Why? It’s not like my enthusiasm for them has increased lately. I’ve been stupid in love with the form for more than 20 years. Instead, the reason I have put them front and center in my work is because this is an opportunity for all of us.
Stick chairs from many cultures are waiting to be discovered. I have been building these chairs for two decades and have barely scratched the surface of what is out there. Honestly, there are hundreds of stick chair forms yet to be explored. I threw out a few dozen examples in the “Sticktionary” chapter of “The Stick Chair Book,” but there are many more that are waiting for you to study and build.
There are pieces out there that absolutely pause my heart for a couple beats because they are so beautiful. Why aren’t those examples published here or in my book? Dealers and museums are stingy with photos of these chairs. I have collected hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos during the last 20 years, but I don’t have the rights to publish them. I have signed Non-disclosure Agreements (NDAs) in order to gain access to collections of these chairs. I have swapped private photos (hush hush, chair porn) with chairmakers and collectors around the world.
I want to invite you into this world. Here’s how it works. Haunt the websites of antique dealers who specialize in vernacular furniture. Collect their images and descriptions because sometimes these photos aren’t public for long. Then observe who follows these dealers (it’s easy to do this on social media). Follow them. And so on. It’s no different than looking at the bibliography in a book then investigating the bibliographies of those books.
It might sound like hard work, but it’s not. And here’s why: These chairs are everywhere once you start looking. Literally everywhere. They turn up at auction nearly every day, but they don’t merit academic study or an exhibit at a museum. (Because they aren’t Shaker, Stickley or commissioned by some industrialist.)
You can quickly become an expert. Find a form that you love. Explore the hell out of it, breaking new ground with every new piece that you build. You can easily surpass me.
Stick chairs aren’t the only undiscovered country in furniture. But they are the one I love. Find your own favorite furniture form and make other people love the crap out of it.
That’s how we change the world.
— Christopher Schwarz