Category: The Stick Chair Journal

This chair is built using Honduran mahogany that is at least 50 years old that I purchased from a millwork and furniture shop in Norwood that was going out of business. I bought every scrap I could afford, and I used most of my stash to build the projects in “Campaign Furniture.”

The rest, I have decided, I will use to make stick chairs. I probably have enough wood for four or five more chairs. (Note that most true mahogany today is illegally harvested. If you are interested in working with it, I recommend you seek out old stock or recycle it from broken or discarded antiques.)

About the Chair

Because I don’t have a lot of thick mahogany, the seat is thin (about 1”) and the leg tenons are reinforced with battens below the seat that are attached with sliding dovetails. This makes the chair lighter in weight and in appearance. The seat is a single board of 16”-wide mahogany.

The seat is 16” off the floor, and the chair is set up for dining or office work. The seat is tilted 4°, and the back is tilted 14° off the seat. The overall height of the chair is 39-1/2”, with an overall width of 22-1/2” and depth of 22”. The splayed-out back sticks provide plenty of shoulder support. This is a quite comfortable chair. 

All the joints are assembled with hide glue (that we make here). This means the chair will be easy to repair in the far-off future as the glue is reversible. The finish is blonde shellac with a coat of black wax.

All the through-tenons in the undercarriage and arms are left slightly proud. They add texture (and a little strength) but they won’t snag your hands. I polished them and slightly rounded them over so they feel like a river pebble. All the short sticks are wedged into the arm above and below in the seat.

It might seem odd to make a folk chair from mahogany, but it is historically appropriate. Many seaside villages would build their furniture from cargo that washed up after shipwrecks (even though that was illegal to do). 

How to Buy the Chair

I’m selling the chair via a silent auction. Crating and shipping are included in your price. As this is a private auction, there is no dealer fee. Your bid is what you pay to acquire the chair and have it shipped to you.

Bids start at $500. My chairs typically sell at auction for anywhere from $1,200 to $5,000, with most of them ending up in the $2,500 range.

If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Friday, Aug 23. Please use the subject line: “Comb Back” In the email please include your:

• Bid
• U.S. shipping address
• Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)

If you have the highest bid, we will notify you. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)

— Christopher Schwarz

When I was finishing up the writing of “The Stick Chair Book,” one of my friends suggested we should make a flip book that had four different “layers.” There would be a layer for the undercarriage, one for the seat plus the arm, one for the sticks and one for the comb. 

Kinda like this.

Readers could flip the pages to try different combinations of undercarriages, seats, sticks and combs. It was a cool idea, if limited in its usefulness.

Then Nick, a reader, made a cool and free tool that you can use to visualize different sorts of chairs. Once you create a design with the sliders, then click “Layout” at the top of the screen, and you get all the dimensions and angles you need to build the chair. It’s really quite clever and amazing.

And don’t forget to rotate the chair around. It really does help you visualize different designs.

The program works in both metric and American Customary Units, and currently works with designing a lowback chair. A comb back is in the works, according to the site.

If you like the tool (I love it), consider sending a contribution (I did).

— Christopher Schwarz

Choosing the wood for your first stick chair can feel paralyzing. You might think that the wrong species will doom the chair. Or the boards’ grain orientation will make things split. Or that you need wood that is green or air-dried.

I know you won’t believe this, but Rule No. 1 with stick chairs is this: Use what you have. And use it to the fullest.

If you have only construction lumber, you can make that work. If you have purpleheart, ditto.

This blog entry is about the species readily available to woodworkers in North America. We have lots of woods that work well for stick chairs. If you have a choice of species when you shop, here are my thoughts on what woods will make the job easier and perhaps less expensive.

You can make a stick chair using only one species. I do this all the time. But you can make the job easier if you separate the project into two parts:

1. Use woods that don’t readily split for the seat, arms and comb/backrest.
2. Use ring-porous woods that split easily for the legs, stretchers and sticks.

Mixing species might horrify you. And it can look horrifying if you don’t take care. But if you take the long view, most darker woods get lighter in time, and most light woods get darker in time. In other words: Everything turns brown. But if you don’t want to wait 20 years for this to happen, paint can also do the job of unifying things.

Woods that Don’t Split Easily

Here are some woods that are readily available in North America that are ideal for seats, arms and combs. 

Tulip poplar: Inexpensive but a bit unattractive. Great for paint. Carves beautifully, so it’s a great wood with which to learn to saddle a seat.

Sycamore: If you can find it in your area, this is a great choice, especially when quartersawn. It carves easily, looks nice and can be some of the cheapest commercial wood out there. It’s also available in wide widths.

Soft maple: Another great wood for the seat, arms and comb. Soft maple is a little more expensive than the above woods, but is fairly cheap overall. Its cousin, hard maple, is more expensive but is also fine.

Black cherry: These days, cherry is out of favor and is cheap (and beautiful). It carves great and – if treated with care – can work for the arms and combs. It splits more easily than the above species, but it is totally do-able.

Basswood/linden: Don’t overlook this species, especially for the seat. It is strong enough, carves incredibly well and doesn’t look horrible. And it’s available in wide widths.

Ideal Woods for Legs, Stretchers & Sticks

I prefer ring-porous woods such as oak and ash because it’s easy to read the grain direction, the species are easy to split and generally easy to find.

Red oak: Though this wood gets a bad rap, I love the stuff. It’s plentiful, strong and cheap. And on a chair you don’t have to deal with the cathedrals on wide panels (which can be overwhelming). I prefer fast-grown oak because it is stronger than slow-growth oak. And, in general, I like Southern red oak more than Northern. (Learn more here.)

Ash: If you can get ash, it’s a great chair wood. Be sure to look for evidence of rot these days. Some lumberyards carry ash that has been on the ground too long and has gotten punky.

Hickory: The ultimate wood for legs and sticks. It is dense and requires effort to work. But it is one of the strongest domestic hardwoods around. 

White oak: I love white oak for case pieces. In a chair, the surfaces are generally narrow, so you don’t get scads of the gorgeous ray flake from the quartersawn stuff. I can buy twice as much red oak for the price of white. So I usually get red.

How to Combine the Species

If you are making a painted chair, it’s difficult to beat the combination of tulip poplar and red oak. They’re both cheap, easy to get and take paint well. If you want to use a transparent finish, it’s best to do some mixing and matching. 

If you use sycamore, basswood or soft maple for the seat/arms/comb, then I recommend ash or hickory for the sticks, legs and stretchers. These species play well together. 

If you use cherry for the seat/arms/comb, I’d use red oak for the sticks/legs/stretchers. You’ll be surprised how well these woods work together after a few years in the sun.

What about other species such as elm, black and honey locust, butternut, coffeewood, sassafras and walnut? If you can find these in your area for a good price, you can absolutely use them for stick chairs. A little research on the tree and playing with a board or two (hello, hammer test) will quickly give you some useful data.

But mostly, don’t hold off on building a chair because you cannot find “perfect wood.” It doesn’t exist in my world. And historically, chairmakers used what they had – Whateverous foundus. And that’s one of the best lessons we can take from the past.

— Christopher Schwarz