Build a Chair from Bulls%$t

Product Description

by Christopher Schwarz

Note: You can download a pdf of this book for free here from Lost Art Press and full-size patterns here. You won’t have to register or give up your email. Just click the link, and the book will download to your device. All copies are signed by the author. 

Note - this book will be in our next delivery

Build a comfortable wooden stick chair using only materials and tools found at your home centre. No jigs, no specialty tools and no exotic techniques.

For centuries, farmers and people who were handy with tools built comfortable chairs using simple tools and the materials around them (usually stuff from the firewood pile). You didn’t need special training or fancy tools – just a normal amount of cleverness and the need to sit down.

“Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” shows you how easy this is to do – even today. Modern home centers are awash in materials that can be adapted to make a nice chair. Shovel handles and stair handrails can be easily made into chair legs. The seat and headrest come from the construction lumber aisle. The spindles? Dowels. And the curved arm? Plywood.

Then stop at your local DIY store to find the gear you need to make the chair. All the sawing is with a handheld jigsaw or tabletop band saw. You’ll also need a battery drill, a block plane, some drill bits and other basic tools. (You probably own most of them already.)

And there’s one more thing you might need: this book.

“Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” shows you how to make this chair using a series of simple illustrations. Instead of wandering into a protracted discussion of trigonometry and compound angles, “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” shows you how to drill all the weird angles in a chair simply by clamping the arm to the seat and drilling holes through both of them.

Tricky operations – like working in curved compound-angle environments – are revealed to be easy. Once you know a trick or two.

The chair itself is spacious and comfortable. It’s based on antique folk chairs you might find by a fireside in a stone cottage. But its straight lines allow it to fit seamlessly in a modern living room or kitchen as well.

After you build a chair or two using the methods in this short book (you can read it in less than an hour), you’ll be ready to embark on making different chairs – smaller, taller, wider, whatever.

Oh, and there's a bonus section at the end of the book that shows you how to use your scraps from the chair to make a nice three legged stool.

All the Help You Need

In addition to the book, Lost Art Press has also created a free feature length how to video on making the chair filmed by apprentice Kale Vogt and woodworker Bridgid Gruber (of Dinkle's Woodshop). The video will be released later in May 2025. Need full size patterns for the chair parts? You can download a pdf of them free here. 

Can’t afford this book? Download it for free with this link.

About the Physical Book

“Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” is one of the Lost Art Press “pocket books” – inexpensive but well made books that are printed and bound in the United States (this one was printed in Tennessee). Measuring 4''x 6.5'' this book has 112 pages. The text is printed on #70 matte-coated paper (acid free). The book’s pages are gathered into signatures then sewn together – a step few publishers bother with today. The book block is then glued and reinforced with fibre tape and covered with heavy cloth covered boards. This is a permanent library grade book – designed to last a couple centuries.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction    
2. Tools for Bulls%$t    
3. Materials
4. Make Patterns
5. Glue Up the Seat
6. Drill Mortises in the Seat
7. Mortises & Tenons for the Legs
8. Make Wedges
9. Undercarriage & Leveling Legs
10. Arm & Sticks 
11. Add the Comb
12. Paint & Wax
Afterword

Appendices
Stool from Leftover Bulls%$t
Gridded Chair Drawings
Chair Cutting List

About the Author

Christopher Schwarz is a furniture maker, writer and teacher. He is one of the founders and publisher of Lost Art Press and one of the founders of Crucible Tool. 

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