“Do you think you could make one of those?”, she asked pointing to a rather elegant Welsh
Stick chair we had spotted in a hotel bar in Rye just after Christmas.
“Well, maybe.” I said. “I know a tiny bit about them. There is an American guy Chris Schwarz
who has spent a lifetime perfecting, teaching and writing about how to make them. If you
really want me to make one, first I need to buy his book - The Stick Chair book.”
And so it came to pass, and I had just the excuse I needed for yet another visit to my local
timber merchant Surrey Timbers Ltd.
Here is my stick journey, and it was to be my most challenging project to date.
Job 1: make a shopping list and buy the wood for the Seat, Legs, Stretchers, Arms, Sticks and
Comb. It’s a complicated list. I went for American Oak. Strong and straight grain.
Job 2: Start on the Seat. 42mm thick, I found a single piece 20cm wide and 100cm long,
which once cut to length and joined would make a perfect 40cm deep seat. Joining a seat
that is going to take a lot of pressure means reinforcing the joint. So I made two tenons and
dug 15mm mortice holes for them. Once happy, I glued, clamped and left it to cure.
Oh no. I woke the following night in a bit of a panic. I’ve got to carve out the seat which
means digging down into it about 10-15mm, and I’ve just ruined it by putting those mortice
holes in the middle just where I want to carve out! Damn. I was relieved finally when I got up
and flicked through the book to see that Chris also strengthens his seat with mortices down
in the middle, so I guess that means the well of seat can’t be more than 10mm deep. Phew.
Not as deep as I was planning, but at least I didn’t need to start all over.
When I start a new project, it inevitably throws up the opportunity to buy a new tool or two.
This chair was no exception, and I quickly found myself with a Scorp and Block plain. How
tiny is that? I had no idea that Block planes were so small – it fits snugly into the palm of the
hand. A perfect one-handed tool. As for the Scorp, well I was a very concerned when I
started off trying to gouge out the seat. It simply wouldn’t cut. The Oak was just too hard.
Surely the Scorp was sharp enough being brand new, but maybe not. I struggled on for a bit
but finally gave up and turned to my sharpening stones. Oh my, that made a huge
difference. Suddenly my Scorp was flying and doing its thing.
Seat done,
Job 3: The legs. I’d made octagonal legs previously so they didn’t pose a
particular challenge. The tricky part was getting the angles right. Fortunately Chris explains
these and how to achieve them very accurately. Careful not be get any tear out drilling
through the seat.
Job 4: Stretchers made and in place. They required the new Block plane to sing into action
creating beautifully rounded dowels by hand and after a day or two I soon found myself with
a decent looking bottom half of a chair.
Job 5: Then to the arms - It’s a big semi-circular curve so I opted to go for 3 pieces joined
together rather than try and bend one long piece. I made a plywood template first. Chris
explains that the most important thing to do next is to clamp the arm in place using a couple
of jigs. This stays there until the chair virtually finished so it never moves.
Job 6: Onto the hardest part of all. Drilling the mortice holes for the short and long sticks,
and lining them up from arm into the seat. That is hard because as you drill down through
the arm, you can’t see where you are aiming. There is a lovely section in the book where he
says there are three ways to do this.
Firstly, go hi-tech and invest in a laser. I wasn’t going to do that.
Second, grab a dude off the street and ask them to help you. I tried that - asked Mrs
E. Nope, she just looked at me vaguely holding up a sight stick but not saying much.
Or finally, just go with “The Force”. Bingo, that worked.
I kind of wiggled, corrected, drilled using a hand bit and brace, and just about did a decent job of it. You needed very long drill bit through, but that’s another story.
Job 7: On the home straight - just a small matter of cutting and shaping 12 dowels. My
bandsaw broke a few months back and I’m in a quandary about what to do about it. I hate
using power tools, but also hand sawing gives me tennis elbow. I ploughed on and cut and
shaped the dowels from a solid piece of oak. Its so satisfying making something rounded by
hand out of a dull flat piece of wood. Then positioned them through the arm and seat
keeping fingers cross that nothing split. All going well so far.
Final step, make the Comb. Again I made a small plywood template first. Chris quite rightly
explains that getting this element right is almost the most important job of all. If you look
really closely at Stick Chairs, you will start to notice how different they look, and very often
there simply hasn’t been enough thought put into the Comb. They can make or break the
elegance of the chair so easily.
There are two choices for making the Comb – Bend it or chop it out of thick piece. I went for
the latter using the Chop & Chisel technique as I was without a bandsaw and had no other
means of cutting a curve.
Job done. How satisfying was that! Time to tidy it up and then apply some finish.
Reading Chris’s book was really enjoyable, whether you plan to make a chair or not. The one
thing it has done is make me look at chairs with a far more searching eye, looking for
symmetry, beauty, balance, angles, strength and of course comfort.
Time to make another, this time correcting all my tiny little mistakes. Thank you, Chris, for a
great read.
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