Three chairs

These three chairs have been some of my focus lately. The ladderback chair with the woven seat is what I first learned from Jennie Alexander and Drew Langsner back in 1980. The continuous arm Windsor chair I just finished a week or so ago. And the little carved chair is the non-American, mostly. It’s the oldest of these three, maybe over a year old. 

These chairs represent something important to me - they are a big part of the trajectory of my woodworking career. As I said, the ladderback was the beginning really.

My first ones preceded meeting Alexander and Langsner, then in the mid-1980s I was around them a lot and absorbed much of my chairmaking knowledge then. Later, 1993/94, I got so involved in studying 17th century oak furniture (with Alexander) that I all but gave up this sort of chair making. Then as we were approaching the 40th anniversary of JA’s book Make a Chair from a Tree, (1978-2018) I began making them again. As it turned out, this was shortly before JA’s death. It was a great feeling to reconnect with that work. Later I was able (with others, too) to help Lost Art Press pull together JA’s drafts into the 3rd edition of her book Make a Chair from a Tree. 

The chair, like all my woodworking, is an all hand-tools project. That’s only important for me - it’s not intended as a slam against people who use machery. This is just the way I prefer to work. I got rid of my electric tools in 1985 - even at that point I didn’t use them much. The posts and slats are white oak, the rungs are hickory. The seat is the inner bark of a hickory tree. Harvesting and weaving hickory bark is some of my favorite part of that work.

There’s a similar story to the continuous arm chair. I made a couple of Windsor chairs before I took a class with Curtis Buchanan in 1987. But those were tossed once I learned from Curtis. Then from there until about 1993 I made maybe 45 of them. And stopped cold. One day my friend Michael Burrey told me he had something to show me - it was a continuos arm settee I had made, that he bought at an estate-type sale. The first thing I thought was “I couldn’t make that today…”

To have lost that ability bothered me, so I began practicing to get it back. And around that time, Curtis published his plans for the shaved winsdors - what he terms the “democratic” chairs. I made a few of them, then a comb back and now this continuous arm chair. His plans and videos are mostly what I’m going by. I still have a long ways to go before it’s easy. But it’s getting there…

Mine has a  white pine seat, ash turnings, hickory spindles and a white oak bow. I didn’t paint it, over time those woods will mute together color-wise. My turnings are thicker than Curtis’ plans call for - I can’t manage that thin stuff on the pole lathe. Too much flexing. 

And lastly, the chair that I leaves me flummoxed when I need to call it something…

I first learned of this form of chair from an article Drew Langsner wrote in Fine Woodworking magazine in 1981. He made one with his Swiss mentor, Ruedi Kohler the cooper. A few years later I made one. Then decades went by and I gave them little thought. But in 2014 I had a couple of leftover boards of walnut and made my 2nd version. 

One of my woodworking teachers, Daniel O’Hagan, passed away many years ago. Recently I have worked with his daughter and son-in-law in studying his index-card shop notes.  Among the subjects was a series of cards on what he called either German, Bavarian or Moravian chairs. That sparked a renewed interest in me for these chairs.

They’re sometimes called brettstuhls, a stabelle and other names besides. They’re found in Germany, Austria, France and elsewhere. Usually in the Alps. All places I have never been. So I feel like a bit of a fraud making them. But I find them intriguing.

I’ve made maybe 5 of them so far. I really like making them, very challenging, much like the Windsor chairs. Different techniques to some extent, some overlap. This one I borrowed some ideas from some chairs that Chris Schwarz, Rudy Everts and Klaus Skrudland gave me photos of. This one’s got butternut for the back and seat, hickory legs and white oak battens underneath. 

It’s the first one that I used through tenons on the legs to the seat.

Historically, most (but not all) were done this way. We’re taught that this is terrible construction because then the seat can’t shrink and expand without splitting. And yes, some old chairs have split seats. But some don’t. This one’s fine so far. It’s made it through a summer and a winter. So I think if it was going to split, it would have done so by now. That seat is not a single board, it’s two joined edge to edge. Maybe that helps, I don’t know. 

The previous ones I made were based on Drew’s measurements and notes. This one the seat has a straight front, with nipped-off corners. I instantly like the look of it better, mostly just because it looks like the old ones. 

I use wedges to secure the uprights in the seat/battens - the old ones I’ve seen in photos used drawbored pins - Ruedi Kohler’s has wedges, but oriented the other way - across those tenons.