Lost Art Press

Stick Chair Journal No. 2 Now Shipping

Posted on by Lost Art Press

After an absurd number of delays, The Stick Chair Journal No. 2 is now shipping. The new issue contains complete plans for a Hobbit-esque stick chair, plus lots of photos of original chairs (for inspiration), techniques to help you at the bench and a profile of Welsh chairmaker Gareth Irwin.

The new issue is $25. Because of the arrival of the new issue, we are closing out copies of issue No. 1 at a special price. And offering a bundle of both issues Nos. 1 & 2 for a discount.

Every order of the Journal comes with a pdf download of the Journal itself, plus a pdf download of the full-size patterns for the chair in each issue.

Important note: We have printed 2,000 copies of issue No. 2 of the Journal. Once that press run has been exhausted, we will not reprint this issue.

And if you haven’t noticed, the Journal is the same physical trim size as “Welsh Stick Chairs” and “The Belligerent Finisher” so all your soft-cover stick-chair material is an identical size (for people who are into that – see below).

About Issue No. 2

Not One Chair, But 1,000: Some chairmakers become obsessed with perfecting one form of chair. That’s fine. But stick chairs ask something different from their makers.

‘Preflight’ Avoids Assembly Disasters: The most common problem stick chair makers face is with cracked arms. These simple techniques reduce the chance of a cracked arm to almost zero.

Gareth Irwin, Chairmaker in the Forest: We visit the Wales shop of Gareth Irwin, who builds his chairs entirely by hand. With lots of inspiring photos.

The Tyranny of Tables: The seats of modern chairs are too high (18″) for short sitters. Why don’t we lower the standard seat height of chairs? Simple answer: The dang tables we dine at. We offer a solution.

Stick Chairs in the Wylde: A detailed photographic look at a selection of antique stick chairs from Tim and Betsan Bowen, antique dealers in Ferryside, Wales.

John Brown’s Cardigan Chair: To our surprise, we now own the first chair that John Brown built in the United States. This article is a close examination of the Cardigan chair, both its virtues and faults.

Hobbit-y Armchair: This chair is inspired by a prop from “The Fellowship of the Ring.” It combines elements of British and Germanic elements into a chair (actually, a backstool. Kinda?) that is perfect for the hearth and telling tall tales.

Control the D#^& Tenon Cutter: If you struggle with the Veritas Power Tenon Cutter, this article will set you (and your tenons) straight.

Today I Would Build Some Furniture

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
Dick’s kitchen chair. It resided at his table. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

The following is excerpted from “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke,” by Monroe Robinson. 

Millions of PBS viewers first met Dick Proenneke through the program “Alone in the Wilderness,” which documents Dick’s 30-year adventure in the Alaskan wilderness. On the shores of Twin Lakes, Dick built his cabin and nearly all of the household objects he required to survive, from the ingenious wooden hinges on his front door to the metal ice creepers he strapped to his boots.

And now, “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke” examines this adventure through the lens of Dick’s tools and the objects he made. Written by Monroe Robinson – the caretaker of Dick’s cabin and his personal effects – the book weaves together vintage photos and entries from Dick’s journals plus new drawings and images to paint a portrait of a man fully engaged in life and the natural world around him. The italic text after Dick’s journal entries is commentary by Robinson.

June 28, 1968:

Today I would build some furniture. First a kitchen chair and then a bench three feet long. I had them both ready to glue by 11:30. Back on the job I augured the hole for my table legs and the bunk poles were ready. I could sort, cut and fit them in. I’m near the end of the job of building on the cabin until I get a plane, glue and polyethylene for the roof. By the time I had the scraps cleaned up and tools sharpened as I do every evening it was time to call it a day.

Three-foot bench. (Photo by Monroe Robinson)

In 1995, Dick wrote, “My chair still giving trouble. One back rest support broke off at the hole in the seat foundation. I would shorten it a bit and shape a new end to fit in the hole with the broken support end. Working like a beaver when here came a Cessna 180.”

My replicated chair without caribou pad. Note the black bear tooth punctures in the end of the seat. (Photo by Monroe Robinson)

In 2001, a black bear broke the chair when it climbed through Dick’s nine-pane window to pull the chair and its caribou fur pad outside. I repaired Dick’s chair only to have it break when someone leaned back too far. I replicated his chair, repaired this new break and sent Dick’s chair to the archives.

In replicating the chair, I particularly focused on drilling the mortise holes for the legs and back rest at angles matching Dick’s. The chair’s stance, the splay and rake of the legs, along with the angle of the backrest support-post, make it a beautiful and comfortable chair. The back legs splay back a few degrees more than the front legs, and the back legs are slightly shorter. The chair looks simple but most handcrafted chairs at wilderness cabins are not crafted like this. Dick’s matter-of-fact approach did not mean a thrown together, uncomfortable chair. And constructing a handsome chair did not mean taking all day.

When a black bear, in 2015, managed to turn the handle of Dick’s door and pull out my replicated chair with a new caribou pad along with Dick’s four-legged stool with his original caribou pad, it was apparent the fur created an attracting odor. All fur was removed from Dick’s cabin.

LAP Open Wire, Sept. 14, 2024

Posted on by fitz
Gabe and Mark at work on pre-production assembly of the Crucible Tool Exeter-pattern nail hammers. We hope to have these available soon.

Update: Comments are now closed (if there are questions we’ve missed, we’ll jump into the backend to answer later). Join us again on Oct. 19.

Do you have a woodworking question in need of an answer? Then you’ve come to the right place! Just post your question in the comments section below, and Christopher Schwarz and I shall do our best to answer. As always, brevity is appreciated. We’ll be online on and off today until around 5 p.m., at which time comments will close.

And mark your calendars for the remaining 2024 Open Wire days: October 19, November 16 and December 14. Plus, our holiday Open House on Saturday, Nov. 23, featuring special guest Rudy Everts!

– Fitz

‘Dutch Tool Chests’ Has Left the Building

Posted on by fitz

I am delighted to announce that the book I started writing four years ago – “Dutch Tool Chests” – is finally in the hands of our printer. I also hope to have proofs to review by the weekend. Above is a mockup of the cover (surprise, it’s gray/blue). The real thing will look a lot better, with cloth over 98 pt. boards and a platinum die stamp. The price will be $39. (As are all Lost Art Press books, it will be printed in the U.S.A.)

Inside the book is everything you need to build your own Dutch tool chest – 192 pages, from choosing materials at the home center or lumberyard to the paint. And of course, lots of hand-tool instruction in between – techniques and tool instruction that will come in handy for any number of projects. Oh – plus a brain dump on through-dovetails (the thing I teach the most), but written so that if you already feel solid in your dovetail abilities, you can skip all but the first sentence of each paragraph in that chapter. I’d hate to bore you.

My favorite parts of the book, though, are the two sections I didn’t write: the foreword from Roy Underhill (thank you, Roy!) and the gallery of Dutch chests from 43 other makers. These clever adaptations and customized interior designs show the great flexibility of the form, and how you can make it your own.

I’ll be sharing more from the book in the coming weeks. For now, I’m just so happy that it’s done. With luck and a lack of printer delays, I hope we’ll have it in house around November 1 (and I’m limbering up my hand for signing copies). And of course, I hope our international retailers will carry it, but as always, that is up to them. (Those that do will likely have it by January.)

– Fitz

Finishes Used by John Brown

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
A primitive chair finished with “Welsh Miserable.”
Photo courtesy of Drew Langsner.


The following is excerpted from “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown,” by Christopher Williams. It’s the first biography of one of the most influential chairmakers and writers of the 20th century: Welshman John Brown.

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John Brown by his own admission wasn’t a fan of finishing. (See Good Woodworking issue 63.) 

“American chairs are really polished. Typically, the finish is paint. Without exception all the American chairmakers I meet ask me how I get my finish. I fail to understand this because it is the least interesting part of my work. It’s an aggravating necessity, as far as I am concerned.”

Here are the finishes that John Brown regularly used. These were always applied before assembling the chair.

‘Welsh Miserable’
This term could be seen as a criticism of the Welsh and brown furniture. But I always took it in jest. During the ’80s and ’90s, brown was deemed to be the accepted colour of country furniture. Newly made furniture was also brown. JB secretly wanted to paint his chairs or leave them blonde. So “Welsh miserable” was his private joke.

JB’s recipe for this was a dark oak stain from a tin. Once it was dry, he applied a coat of sanding sealer. He would rub this back with fine sandpaper. He then applied two or three thin coats of shellac button polish and left the finish to dry overnight, if time allowed. He lastly applied a coat of dark oak wax polish with #0000 wire wool.

A Cardigan chair possibly finished with the “Spirit of Wales” finish.

The Spirit of Wales
This finish was a favourite of his. It probably was the only finish he was enthused about as it brought out the artist in him! JB wrote, “The effect is not meant to reproduce an antique finish, but to try to capture the Spirit of Wales.”

JB would first apply a dark green water-based dye to the raw timber – always remembering to raise the grain a few times beforehand. When it was dry, he sanded it smooth and didn’t worry about sanding through the green. He then applied a dark brown stain over the green. When it was dry, he gave it a coat of sanding sealer. He sometimes added a coat of button polish before applying dark brown or black wax.

The finished chair had a greenish, brown/black appearance. In a certain light it’s spectacular.

Two primitive Welsh chairs with John Brown’s blonde finish.

Blonde
JB described a natural-coloured chair as a “blonde chair.” He had two approaches to this.

If the natural colour of the grain was needed to be kept as bright as possible he used a white shellac polish. He would first apply a coat of sanding sealer. Then he gave it two or three coats of white shellac. In most cases he didn’t thin the polish; it was used direct from the bottle. Great care was needed as a high gloss could be attainted very quickly. This in turn gave the chair a glassy look. Finally, he applied a clear wax polish with #0000 wire wool.

He would sometimes (in his words) want to “kill the lightness.” By adding a few coats of shellac garnet polish over the sanding sealer this gave the chair a honey colour and a warm glow. He would finish up with a light, oak-coloured paste wax.

JB predominantly used the combination of oak and elm for the bulk of his chairs. Each species complemented the other colour-wise. If a steambent ash bow was added to the mix, it was coloured to blend in with the oak and elm. He achieved this by first making a strong pot of tea. The tea was applied to the ash arm before the sanding sealer and subsequent finish.

Oil
I only saw JB use oil on occasion. The tenons on the legs, stretchers and sticks were covered in masking tape to prevent the oil from penetrating. The oil was applied and left to dry before he applied a coat of paste wax with #0000 wire wool.

To me it looked lacklustre compared to the shinier shellac finish.