You cannot. You can’t build a table with this sort of joinery and use it for a tough task such as butchering. Can you? There’s only one way to find out, and it doesn’t involve your mouth or a keyboard.(Illustration by Katherine Schwarz)
The following is excerpted from “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” by Christopher Schwarz. Chris often writes a short intro to these Tuesday excerpts, but I’m not sure how he’ll feel about writing one for his own book – after all, one can assume that everything he had to say on the subject is already in the book. Plus, Chris is the least self-aggrandizing person I know. So here’s a few words of praise from me: I think this book is brilliant. It teaches even the most rank beginner how to build simple but handsome furniture with just a few joints and a small kit of tools. It makes the craft approachable, and invites readers in, taking them from simple projects through more advanced pieces of furniture, all building on the previous lessons. And sure – lots of books do that. But the interstitial chapters, such as the one below, teach more than how, they teach why – and that makes “The Anarchist’s Design Book” a joy to read.
— Fitz
I’m talking about shellac with a couple of experienced woodworkers and one of them remarked about an old employer:
“This guy made us make our own shellac,” he said with a sense of wonder.
“He made you go to India and beat the trees?” I asked, a tad confused.
“What? No,” he replied. “We had to mix it up with flakes and alcohol.”
“Wait, how else can you do it?” I replied honestly.
After an awkward pause, the other woodworker said: “Next you’re going to try to convince us to make our own glue out of animals.”
He’s right. I was.
I wouldn’t call myself a traditionalist or a purist. I wear modern underwear. I use all manner of hand tools and machines. I’m fascinated by historical techniques, CNC, 3D printing and how technology (old and new) could change furniture making for the better. It is more accurate to say that I’m an explorer. If someone told me I could make my own paint from beer, I’d try it that night. (I did, and you can.) And if someone were to tell me you could shrink beech biscuits in the microwave, I’d try that, too. (I did, and you can’t. They only catch fire.)
The point is that woodworking is most interesting when you open yourself up to new techniques, no matter how crazy or daunting. I am always surprised at how easy most things turn out to be in our craft. The most difficult part seems to be to work up the courage to begin.
This is not a new problem. It is an old one that was at times state-mandated.
During the last decade I’ve had the privilege to work in Germany with talented journeymen who completed their formal training both in school and in the real world, earning the right to build furniture for a living.
As you would expect, these men and women are tremendously skilled and knowledgeable. They can cut joinery by hand or with power tools with equal facility. They can finish setting up an enormous spindle moulder then pick up a handplane.
It’s a bit humbling for someone who hasn’t been through the German program.
But then one year I taught a class over there that involved some simple turnings for some chair legs. And I was surprised that none of them had ever turned a spindle or carved a leg. They had never even really considered trying it, even though they had a sweet lathe in their shop.
Those tasks were reserved for people in the turning or carving programs. So their teachers never showed them even the first thing about the lathe or other woodworking disciplines.
I taught them to turn. They loved it. And because of all the other skills they had learned as joiners, they picked it up remarkably fast.
So the next time someone tells you that you can make your own liquid hide glue with a hot plate, try it – if only to prove that you can’t.
By request, here is a short movie showing the process of making the long sticks. This is almost identical to the technique shown in “The Stick Chair Book.” The only difference is a change to the sequence of cuts in Stage 1.
Using planes to make chair sticks is not my invention – not by a longshot. I first learned to do it this way in “Welsh Stick Chairs” by John Brown. The only difference is I’m doing it on a low workbench. JB put a stop in his machinist vise for this operation.
John Brown making long sticks with a block plane and a stylish hat.
I never thought this process was weird (what was really odd to me was doing it with the Ashem Crafts trapping and rotary planes). The goal with this handplane technique is to use bench tools and not have to purchase a drawknife, spokeshave and shavehorse. If you have these tools, ignore me.
I am always looking for a faster way to make the 26”-long sticks that make up the backrests of my chairs. Making the 12-1/2”-long short sticks is easy. I can bang one out in a minute or two with a block plane.
But the long sticks have a complicated shape. They have a 5/8” tenon at the bottom. Then the stick swells to 3/4” and goes back down to 5/8” along the next 8”. I have to get the swelling exactly right because the stick wedges in a 5/8” mortise in the arm and supports the arm from below. Finally the stick tapers to 1/2” at its tip.
Anatomy of a long stick.
I first learned to make long sticks with a drawknife and shavehorse. Then I was taught to use “trapping planes” on a lathe. Finally, I settled on using a jack plane and block plane. These were tools I already had an intimate relationship with. And I don’t need a shavehorse.
The process to make long sticks that’s outlined in “The Stick Chair Book” is one I have used for many years and is pretty fast. But during the last few months I have been experimenting with different combinations of strokes to see if I can speed the plow. The following process cuts my stick-making time in half. That cuts almost an hour off the time I need to make a chair.
Note that when I make sticks using planes, I skew the planes significantly (about 30°) to speed their cutting action.
Three Stages
As mentioned above, I use a jack plane and block plane to make my long sticks. I place a little stop block in a vise so it is 1/2” above the jaws of the vise. Or I use a planing block (shown in the photos) that is 1/2″ tall. I press the tip of the stick against the stop with one hand and push the plane with the other. The weight of the jack plane keeps it in the cut.
My long sticks begin as 3/4” x 3/4” x 26” octagons of straight hardwood. The work is divided into three stages.
Stage 1
I hold the tenon with one hand and the jack plane with the other. I make two tapering strokes with the jack plane. The first begins about 13” from the tip of the stick. The second begins back at my left hand. I make this pair of strokes three times without rotating the stick. This creates a significant flat on the stick. And by the third set of strokes, the jack is a little difficult to push.
A short stroke.
Long stroke.
Then I rotate the stick until an arris (aka a corner) is facing up. Then I repeat the above strokes – making the arris into a wide flat. Then I rotate the stick again. I keep stroking and rotating until the stick’s tip is about 5/8” in diameter – or about 1/8” above the 1/2”-tall stop in my vise.
Here is an arris before planing.
That arris becomes a flat after three short strokes and three long strokes. Then I rotate the stick so a new arris points up.
Then I enter Stage 2
Stage 2
Stage 2 is simple. It is just full-length strokes on the stick – from my hand (still holding the tenon) to the tip. I start on an arris and take three strokes, again making a flat. Then I rotate the stick until an arris faces up. Then three more strokes to flatten it. Rotate. Repeat.
I keep this pattern up until the tip of the stick is 1/2” in diameter and does not stick up above the stop in the vise.
Here you can see the tip of the stick is just about 1/2″ in diameter. A few strokes will finish it.
That’s when I enter Stage 3.
Stage 3
I turn the stick around and press the tenon against the stop in the vise. Then I use a block plane to taper the bottom of the long stick down to the tenon. I do this by making quick, short cuts and rotating the stick. This work is quick.
I leave a little bit of a shoulder so the stick fills the mortise in the seat.
Then I turn the stick around again, pushing its tip against the stop in the vise, and I clean up the top part of the stick, making sure it is round and the facets are nice and even.
I check my work by dropping the long stick into a mortise in my armbow. The stick should get wedged with about 8” of the stick (plus the 1-1/4” tenon) showing. If I need to remove more material, I remove the stick from the arm and shave it more with the block plane. Look for arrises and smooth them out.
This might not be the fastest way to make sticks, but it’s the fastest way I know of today.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Why don’t I turn my sticks on a lathe? I don’t have a steady-rest or any other equipment that could make this work. I prefer to work with bench tools when making chairs in order to keep my tool kit as small as possible. Plus, I’m a fairly lame turner.
I have a few important restock notices today. We’ve just posted a big batch of Crucible 4” Sliding Bevels. The machine shop is cranking them out as fast as they can, and we hope to catch up with demand before February.
Also – we have Crucible Card Scrapers back in stock. I wish I could blame the supply chain crisis for these being out of stock, but that would be a lie. I plum forgot to order the steel when we ran low on the tools and then – bam – we ran out.
The other news is that we have chore coats in stock in the new cavalry twill. Tom Bonamici, our clothing designer, wrote this up about the new fabric.
“We’ve tried a few different fabrics for our chore coat. The first was a hauntingly nice heavy sateen from Japan, custom-woven for the project. It was amazing, but outrageously expensive. Like, sell-a-kidney expensive. So we switched to a nice sturdy brushed twill from a U.S. vendor for the next two production runs.
“For our latest run, which is now available, we’ve switched to a mid-weight cotton cavalry twill from Brisbane Moss, a long-running mill in West Yorkshire, England. Cavalry twill is a tightly woven hard-wearing double twill, originally developed for military riding breeches. It’s very similar in construction to wool whipcord, with a harder face that’s easy to brush clean of sawdust and plane shavings. And it’s slightly lighter weight than our last two fabrics, making a chore coat that’s really the perfect weight for a year-round layer in the shop.
“The coat’s construction is the same as ever – reinforced lower pockets, custom debossed buttons, and a fit on the trim side of regular. And we’re proud to keep working with Sew Valley here in Cincinnati for the cut and sew.”
One more note about the coats. We had them listed at $135, which was a price we were selling out some small sizes in the old material. I forgot to restore the price back to $165. So some of y’all got the bargain of the year (I know, it’s early in the year).
Norwegian forest workers wondering where all the stick chairs are.
All the factors should be in place.
Trees? Check.
More than 2,000 years of well-documented woodworking and other crafting traditions? Check.
A large countryside with huge distances and scattered, isolated villages? Check.
A long and proud history of self-sufficiency and homesteading? Check and check.
So how come I can’t find any vernacular stick chairs in this country?
I have no idea.
Norway can be a harsh place to live. Both the arctic climate and our expressive topography has made it necessary for previous generations to employ both survival skills and creativity. Some would also claim that the urge to live in isolation is embedded in our genes and culture. Many farms and villages are still situated in roadless areas only accessed by boat or mountain trails. The off grid, primitive and quiet life is an integral part of our heritage. It’s so popular that even one of our most popular shows on national TV is a documentary series about Norwegians living off grid. It’s been running in the prime-time slot for 20 years.
You might wonder where I’m going with this. Well, I’m just trying to make the point that I’m surprised we don’t have a stronger tradition of making stick chairs here. People led simple and primitive lives, often poor and in relative isolation. Your nearest neighbor would often be behind the next mountain. Everything would have to be made on the farm using available resources or perhaps made by a traveling craftsman. When it comes to chairs, I would suspect that primitive stick chairs were the norm. Mortising sticks or even branches into a seat is an ancient construction method that’s quick and easy and has been around since they built the pyramids.
Hoem Farm, 2018. Someone must have made a stick chair here once.
I’ve searched through books, libraries, visited farms, antique shops, collections, talked to conservators, collectors, professors and myself. All I’ve ever found are either joined chairs, ladderback chairs or log chairs.
Log chair. Not a stick chair.Ladderback chair. Also not a stick chair.Joined chair. Definitely not a stick chair.
Lost and Found
I was about to give up. Then I talked to Chris Williams, the Welsh chairmaker and Lost Art Press author. I told him about my quest and why it meant so much to me. I’ve always preferred primitive stick chairs over anything else because I feel they’re so bare and honest. I’m a sucker for simplistic beauty and decay aesthetics. Chris told me to keep searching and said he was positive that something would turn up. I’m not sure how he would know, but I took his word for it. So I kept digging and, lo and behold, one day I came across this creature:
This is a staked stool found in a Goahti, the traditional hut or tent that our indigenous Sámi use to live in. It was found and documented by Asbjørn Nesheim (1906-1989), who was a pioneer researcher of Sámi people culture and ways of life. At a first glance it might not look that special, but I knew immediately that I’d never seen anything like it. It’s a primitive, staked construction. Probably made by the same person who needed a place to sit.
The unique thing here though is the use of the natural crook or root used for the seat. Naturally bent wood is often seen in Welsh stick chairs, both old and modern. Though almost always in the arm or the back of the chairs. And I knew right away that I’ve never seen a crook used like this in a stool before. To make a long story short, finding out more about this tradition became a new obsession for me. And I found several more. All over the country, both in Sámi and Norwegian culture. I’ve never seen them before and suddenly they’re popping up everywhere. It’s like when you learn a new word and suddenly you see it everywhere.
Wildly Grown Speculations
Considering that they show up all over Norway over a time span of at least 200 years, my hopeful conclusion is that this particular construction method and style got traction and became somewhat popular. Which is not unlikely, as it’s quick, sturdy and light. Norway is also chock full of crooked mountain birches and other wonky species.
I’m also guessing that stools and benches were more popular than chairs. Hence the abundance of stools and the lack of stick chairs. Chairs were a luxury. You can be really comfortable on a bench or a stool, especially if you can lean your back towards the wall. Therefore, it might not be worth the effort putting a back on them. Stools are also light and versatile. They can easily be carried around, out on the porch, into the barn and around the house.
Norwegian mountain birch
Uncovering Old Tracks
For a long time I had a bunch of old photos of these “half moon stools”, but no further information. Then one day I finally found a 1943 publication from a museum where the aforementioned researcher Asbjørn Nesheim had published a brief article. Each time he visited the Sámi people, he often stumbled across these stools and became fascinated with them. They seemed to show up everywhere he went, but no one het met could specify their origin. Which probably means that they’ve “always been there”. This was all just a sidetrack from his much broader studies of Sámi culture, but he was so intrigued that he wrote an article about the stools. His 4-page article ends with the following (translated by me):
“This article has looked at a part of Sámi culture that is neither large, nor very significant. However, this is where we get a closer look into highly developed skills within the Sámi people. These skills are essential for their highly evolved wilderness culture: ingenuity and adaptiveness. Studying their vernacular furniture also raises the question whether there has been cultural contact and exchanges between Sámi people and non-Sámi people. Taking this into consideration, I would like to call for further information or knowledge about the origins of the “half moon stool.”
These Sámi people probably had a stool, but didn’t have it ready for the photo.
These are all very good points being made. Keep in mind though that the reason he asks whether there could have been a cultural exchange, is that there wasn’t expected to have been one. The indigenous Sámi people suffered well over 100 years of ugly and shameful oppression from Norway, officially until 1959.
From what I can make of it, Asbjørn Nesheim’s quest ended there. And thereby also mine for now. If he ever got his call for help answered and got to know more about the origin and tradition of these unique stools, I haven’t been able to find out about it. However, I’m thrilled to have found a type of stool that seems to be both unique and deeply rooted in tradition. How it ended up all across the country, I don’t know. I’m also curious to why it has disappeared in tradition. No one seems to either remember them, how they learned to make them or why they make them just like that. It’s a mystery to me that we don’t know more about these stools. They’ve been around for centuries, obviously adapted by the nonindigenous and spread throughout the country. Are they perhaps so commonplace that they just disappear from our collective memories?
A beautiful, primitive Half Moon Stool. Made in Setesdal, Norway, 1862.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a little cliffhanger:Asbjørn Nesheim also came across a few very interesting chairs when studying Sámi culture. There were only a few and he didn’t go very much into detail, but they’re interesting. I have never seen anything like them. I’ll come back to them in a later post. If you have anything to add or tell me about Half Moon Stools or similar construction techniques, feel free to contact me directly or share it here in the comments! I’d love to know more.
