My family & I took a quick trip to visit friends in Maine. No class, no workshop, lecture, etc. Just plain fun. Scattered about the self-proclaimed “house of chairs” is a great mis-mash of ladderback chairs. When I began woodworking in 1978, I started with this book.
It showed how to make a “shaved” chair. Same format as a turned chair, but no turnings.
Here’s a turned Shaker chair –
Many years later, I learned some about furniture history & found references to “plain matted chairs” and “turned matted chairs” – matted referring to the woven seats. (See American Furniture, 2008 for an article on shaved chairs – “Early American Shaved Post and Rung Chairs” by Alexander, Follansbee & Trent. )
Here’s a nice $15 version, from French Canada. Through mortises all over, rungs & slats. Probably birch. Posts rectangular, not square. Did they shrink that way, or were they rectangles to begin with?
Rear posts shaved, not bent.
Tool marks, sawing off the through tenon, hatchet marks from hewing the post.
Small wooden pins secure the rungs in the post. Did not see wedges in the through tenons. Tool kit for a chair like this is pretty small, riving & hewing tools – drawkinfe, maybe a shaving horse? – tools for boring a couple of sizes of holes. what else? A knife? a chisel for the slat mortises…
Here’s an armchair – also shaved. Big. the curved rear posts angle outwards. the arms meet the arris of this post…one front post has a nice sweep to it. I forget if the other does…
It was a tight spot that had enough light…so I had to tilt to get the whole chair in this shot.
The side seat rungs and the arms both have this bowed shape…
Although the arms have been moved down in the rear stiles.
I couldn’t get high enough to really capture the shape of the rear stile… I’d guess these stiles are bent this time, not shaved.
The front stile, swept outwards.
You should see the cheese press. A masterwork of mortise-and-tenon joinery. Next time I’ll empty it and shoot the whole thing.
PETER FOLLANSBEE: JOINER’S NOTES 
I love Appalachian stick furniture. My apartment building just cut about fifty cherry trees so up to my neck in green cherry. I am working on my second green wood stool and its coming along nicely. This is very inspiring.
That is a really cool cheese press, I’m guessing it has two sets of pulleys for mechanical advantage, one each side and that windlass pulls up a movable lower level?
yup.
I really like the simple styles of those. The armless versions are going on my “to build” list. Are there any good books in print that cover that style?
see comment # 5 below. Also Drew Langsner;’s Chairmaker’s Workshop found at http://www.countryworkshops.org
Reblogged this on The Christian Tool Cabinet and commented:
Check out these super simple chairs. I’m going to have to try these one day.
A few years ago Alexander put out a video based on the book. It made me realize that furniture making is accessable even if you don’t have a lot of space or fancy tools.
http://www.greenwoodworking.com/
The big armchair may be either French-Canadian or French, if beech. The arms on the Chipstone chair arm similarly high, presumably to accommodate a heavy cushion on the seat, otherwise you’d lower the arms too!!
I really like the simple style of this chair and its totally looking different and good looking.i loved it.
Much riskier and noisy chairs but it will look more attractive with the furniture and perfect use of the colors.
[…] The book Make a Chair from a Tree has been out of print for a long time. Old copies are expensive and difficult to find; but there is good news! I was happy to see in a recent post on the Lost Art Press blog that an updated version is in the works, as well as an upcoming book by chairmaker Peter Galbert. Alexander’s book inspired many, including Peter Follansbee (see his related blog post here). […]