The Chairmaker's Workshop

The Chairmaker's Workshop is now available in an Author's Reprint Edition. The color gallery photos in the original version are now black and white. Many small errors have been corrected among other changes to make this author's reprint edition an improvement over the original. 304 pages with soft cover in color.

Drew Langsner's classic text, The Chairmaker's Workshop was originally published in 1997 by Lark Books. Written to serve as both an introduction and working reference for anyone interested in making both post-and-rung and Windsor chairs.

Partial contents:

Part I. Materials, tools and setting up a workshop (includes directions for making several specialty tools, such as a splitting froe and a travisher.)

Part II. Step-by-step tutorials for making 3 chair types: a 2-slat ladderback, a rustic stick Windsor, and a bow-back Windsor side chair.

Part III. Scaled plans and notes for making 8 other post-and-rung chairs and Windsors, including a post-and-rung rocking chair, 4 classic American Windsors, and a double hoop English Windsor.

Part IV. Making a shaving horse, a chairmaker's workbench, a spring pole lathe, and several options for constructing a small drying kiln. Plus a chapter on designing a chair, with 4 pages of tables for calculating sighting and resultant angles for boring legs and spindles on Windsor chairs.

The book also includes a chairmaker's glossary and an annotated bibliography. Over 300 drawings, and more than 200 photographs. With an Introduction by Welsh chairmaker, John Brown. Softbound, 304 pages.