Category: The Stick Chair Journal

The Stick Chair Journal is in the final stages of production and will be released in Fall 2022. We’ve added it to the store so that you can sign up for to be notified when it is available. To do that, visit the store page and click on “Notify Me.” (Note that on the front page of the store, there’s a banner on the Journal (and other items with zero units in stock) that reads “sold out.” Underneath is the “notify me” banner.)

When it’s available (again, not until Fall), there will be two ways to purchase it:

1. Order the softcover version and you will also receive two PDFs: a PDF of the journal and a second PDF of the patterns for the chair in this issue at checkout.

2. Order the PDF of the Journal and you will receive two PDFs: a PDF of the journal and a second PDF of the patterns for the chair in this issue at checkout.

We plan to print 4,000 copies – and when the press run sells out, that’s it (though the PDF will remain available). Unlike with our books, we do not plan to reprint to keep the physical item in stock.

The Stick Chair Journal, will be an annual publication that aims to expand the universe of all things stick chair: More history. More plans. More techniques. Reviews of tools. And Big Thoughts. It is a supplement to “The Stick Chair Book.“

In Issue No. 1, you’ll find:

• A Lousy Way to Run a Railroad: An explanation of what this journal is all about.

• How & Why to Make Hexagonal Parts: An exploration of hexagonal chair parts. How to make them both by hand and with some machine assistance. Plus the design considerations for their visual and actual mass.

• True Grit: A Dirty Job, But Not a Dirty Word: Abrasives in woodworking predate planes and other edged tools. There’s no shame – and there is plenty of historical precedent – in sandpaper.

• The Fat Boy Scriber: An ingenious tool for marking leg lengths and, with an easy modification, marking curves.

• Chairmaking on the Cheap(er): You don’t need expensive tools; here are less expensive and accurate alternatives for cutting tenons, fitting combs and locking in your important angles.

• Comb-back with an Improved Arm: Complete plans and construction information for a new six-stick comb-back chair, with a four-piece, mitered-end armbow and a thin, cut-away profile on the hands.

• Stick Chairs in the Wylde: The road to becoming a good chairmaker is looking deeply at beautiful chairs. We explore a chair that has launched the chairmaking careers of many makers.

• A Vampire Chair: A fabled chair in Tennessee was broken apart to murder its owner. Now that it has been repaired, it’s acting odd.

— Fitz

Every day (and most nights) I am working on the first issue of The Stick Chair Journal, an annual publication that will expand the universe of sticks chairs. More history. More plans. More techniques. Reviews of tools. And Big Thoughts.

The writing, photography and design for the first issue is coming together nicely, and Issue No. 1 will be released in the fall.

Every week, I’ve been pitching my ideas to Megan over lunch. Two weeks ago, I laid out the design aspects of the Journal, plus some of the mechanical aspects (paper stock, cover stock, binding, trim size and the like). As a writer and an editor, I got quite excited about the way it would look.

Then I did what every good publisher should do. I got out my calculator and pencil and did a proper P&L (profit and loss statement) for the title. 

Woodworking is a niche. The craft of chairmaking is a room inside that niche. And stick chairs are a cockroach hole in the baseboard of that room inside the niche. So now our plans are to print 3,000 copies of the first issue. If it sells out, we’ll sell pdfs of the first issue and consider increasing the press run for the second issue.

So I’ve had to make some changes. Instead of hiring an artist to draw the masthead for The Stick Chair Journal, I decided to construct it myself using fonts we already own. Same with the cover border – I can get about 95 percent of where I want to be by modifying some clip art we own. Instead of hiring a woodcut artist to make a cut of the chair featured in the issue, I’ll simulate that effect in Illustrator. 

Oh, and my plans to commission a series of woodblock initial caps for our stories? I nixed that, too. So, tonight I am making our own custom woodblock initial caps – using wooden children’s blocks that I am modifying with gouges and engraving tools. 

While all this might sound like I am retreating or giving up on my “dreams,” I feel the opposite. By doing this work myself, the first issue will become profitable if we sell only 1,000 copies. And that small fact ensures there will be issues Nos. 2 and 3.

— Christopher Schwarz

I finished writing “The Stick Chair Book” last year with great reluctance. There were scads of techniques and forms of stick chairs that I still wanted to explore. But I knew that I was reaching the mechanical limits of our bindery (the book is 632 pages) and the patience of the readers (the book is 632 pages).

So I vowed to write some softcover “supplements” to “The Stick Chair Book.” Each supplement would explore a different form of chair and the new techniques required to build it.

I’ve been hard at work on the first supplement since September. As I started assembling my notes, I realized that the material went way beyond my original outline. When put together, all the different parts were like, well, a magazine.

Now, most of you know that I would sooner make sweet love to a porcupine than start a magazine. I did my time.

But I couldn’t ignore all these bits and pieces and how they fit together. As an exercise, I decided to sketch out the next few supplements, and the ideas came together quickly and seamlessly. Each supplement had a new chair plan, plus half a dozen articles on techniques and tools that expanded the stick chair universe.

Well damn.

So I am bewildered to announce the “The Stick Chair Journal, Vol. 1,” which will be available in September 2022. The Journal will be built and sold like a book. It will be 7-1/4” wide and 9-5/8” tall (the same dimensions as “Welsh Stick Chairs”). Coated paper. Sewn bindings. With a heavy card-stock cover. And it will have 128 to 160 pages – a very efficient size for printing. 

There will be no subscriptions. No advertising. And it will be sold like a book – $20 per issue. Here’s a look at the first issue:

The Chair

The first issue will feature complete plans and construction information for a new six-stick comb-back chair. The chair armbow is made of four pieces with mitered ends. The hands have a thin, cut-away profile, one I haven’t shown publicly before. Many of the through-tenons are domed and faceted. I’ve built variants of this chair about five or six times now and know exactly how it should look.

Techniques & Tools

• How to lay out, cut and taper hexagonal legs and stretchers.
• A new (and fast) way to make long back sticks that combines handplaning with some work from the Veritas Dowel Marker (or any dowel maker).
• An exploration of how to use the travisher made by James Mursell to saddle seats without an adze or scorp.
• How to sharpen a scorp and a travisher safely with a table saw.
• How to effectively use the Tooley Park scribers in chairmaking.
• Plus the blog posts from my “Chairmaking on the Cheap(er)” series, expanded with additional details.

Until I run out of ideas, the Journal will be written entirely by me. But I could see a future where there might be a guest editor or two.

— Christopher Schwarz