Brettstuhl progress, a video sample and more

Things here at the shop are settling down a bit, gaining some focus so I can finish a few things before going off on any more tangents. This year I have two video series planned. This coming week I should finish up shooting the one about making a “brettstuhl” - still don’t have a good English word for this chair, so I’m going with the German name. It has other names in other countries. I’ve made about 8 of them so far, not counting the one I’m shooting now. My interest in them is tied in part to my Craft Genealogy project. I first heard of them through Drew Langsner’s Fine Woodworking article in 1981 - when he made one with his Swiss mentor Reudi Kohler. That article included plans and I’ve used those plans as my starting point. Then when I began reading Daniel O’Hagan’s notes, he made some and studied examples he saw in Pennsylvania. So I’ve been combining those two sources along with photos given to me by Chris Schwarz, Rudy Everts and Klaus Skrudland (they went museum-and-antique creeping a couple of years ago and shot many photos of brettstuhls and more). 

Yesterday I was fitting the back tenons through the seat and battens and got to fastening those joints. I’ve always used tapered rectangular wedges - Reudi’s chair has those wedges running through the thickness of the back’s tenons. Here’s one I did that way in 2014

wedged across the battens

Now I make them so the wedges run through the width of the tenons, along the battens. You just have to shorten them enough so they don’t hit the (not-yet-in-place) legs.

wedged through the back’s tenons