Lost Art Press

Sometime right after being hired by Popular Woodworking magazine in 1996 I saw my first Welsh stick chair in the British magazine Good Woodworking. I can remember the exact article. Heck, I own the article. It showed John Brown standing next to one of his chairs.

I was hooked, and there was nothing that could be done about it except to start building chairs.

Most things I write about are boxes and other carcase work, and I love that stuff to death. It’s my bread, butter and occasionally jam; it puts food on our table. But I tell other people that chairmaking is my hobby. I don’t talk much about my chairs on the blog. I don’t show my work to others unless they press me, and that’s because it really sucks. Really and truly sucks eggs through the tailpipe of a 1971 El Camino.

But I work at it all the time. I’ve taken more classes in chairmaking than in any other topic. I read everything I can find on the topic. And here’s why.

While I still stink as a chairmaker, it makes me a better woodworker.

Chairmaking introduced me to the lathe. To the drawknife. To a comprehension and mastery of compound angles. To steam-bending. To radical curves. To green wood. I could go one for maybe 20 more sentences like this, but you’d get bored until I mentioned the word “nipples.”

I think… no, more than that… I actually feel that chairmaking is a good thing for all woodworkers to try. It will open your eyes to parts of the craft that you thought were difficult but actually are ridiculously easy once you know the tricks and learn them from someone who truly knows his or her stuff.

And that’s why “Chairmaker’s Notebook” should be on your shelf. It’s disguised as a chairmaking book, but it’s actually a book about all the stuff in the craft that you probably have been ignoring or have been afraid to try. Yes, there is green woodworking in there. Yes, there are unfamiliar tools and ways of working that seem foreign.

But Peter Galbert has a way of explaining things that makes you say: “Duh. I get it now. Why did I think that operation was difficult.” For the last three years I have been working with Pete to bring “Chairmaker’s Notebook” to print. Editing the book was difficult at times because I was learning so much at the same time I was trying to refine the way it was being explained in print. Like trying to edit a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King.

So this book is a personal victory for me. It is the chairmaking book that I wish I’d had in 1996 when I saw that John Brown chair. I’m almost 20 years older now, but I’m thrilled that I finally have this book – both for me as well as you.

— Christopher Schwarz\

“Chairmaker’s Notebook,” written and illustrated by Peter Galbert, is available in the Lost Art Press Store with free domestic shipping until March 20, 2015 – the day the book ships from the printer.

Whether you are an aspiring professional chairmaker, an experienced green woodworker or a home woodworker curious about the craft, “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is an in-depth guide to building your first Windsor chair or an even-better 30th one. Using more than 500 hand-drawn illustrations, Peter Galbert walks you through the entire process, from selecting wood at the log yard, to the chairs’ robust joinery, to applying a hand-burnished finish.

And if you’ve never thought about building a chair, this book might convince you to try. Building a chair will open your eyes to ways of working wood that you might miss if you stay in the rectilinear world of boxes.

Once you understand chairmaking, then odd and compound angles become child’s play. You will know how wood works in a deeper way (and how to exploit it). And you will gain access to an arsenal of open-ended tools, such as the drawknife, that will fundamentally change the way you work – plus expand the shapes and surfaces you can produce.

At 406 pages, “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is an in-depth look at the craft from the hand of a professional chairmaker, teacher and artist. During the last 15 years, Galbert has developed processes, tools and ways of understanding joinery that have simplified the way people build chairs using hand tools. He has traveled the world to teach his techniques to other chairmakers. And he spent more than three years drawing out every step of the process for the illustrations in “Chairmaker’s Notebook.”

The result is a book on chairmaking that starts with understanding a single stick you would find on a walk in the woods and takes you into advanced areas of the chair craft that no other book has ventured.

Like all Lost Art Press books, “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is produced entirely in the United States. The text is printed on heavy #80 matte paper, its signatures are sewn together and then bound in cloth tape to last several lifetimes. The book is hardbound, covered in cloth and a heavy full-color dust jacket.

All pre-publication orders before March 20, 2015, receive free domestic shipping, which is when the book will ship from the printer in Tennessee. The hardbound book is $47. You can order a digital download of the book for $20. Or you can order both for $57. Note that all digital downloads are delivered immediately.

To place your order, visit the Lost Art Press store.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. When we have a list of retailers that agree to carry the book we will publish that list here on the blog.