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Brettstuhl

Brettstuhl

It's both simple and complex

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Peter Follansbee
Jan 24, 2024
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Brettstuhl
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I got back to the brettstuhl project yesterday. I’m slow at carving the acanthus leaves - so rather than wait to finish those, I skipped ahead and began working on the mortises in the seat and forming the battens. As I sit and write this post and think things through - I’ve pulled a bunch of photos from various versions of these chairs.

I’ve made notes as I work on each one and made small changes each time. A little less taper here or there, more spacing, changing angles, etc. One place I have to stop and visualize is how the tapered battens and the rectangular mortises interact. There’s a lot going on with just a couple of pieces of wood. The back’s tenons come down into the seat at an angle - about 10 degrees. Those mortises are around 7/8” x 1 3/4”. And because they’re part of a one-board back - they’re fixed in relation to each other. Mine had 5 7/16” between them. They fit through the seat and the battens below. An earlier chair’s test fit:

testing the back through the seat & battens

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