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  Making a Scottish Arts and Crafts style Chair    

 © John Bullar 2003   

A friend asked me to make a special chair as a fiftieth birthday present for her brother, a tall Scotsman. This oak and leather seat with its high back was the result. It is the latest in a series of individual chairs I have made recently, using similar construction techniques but varying in detail and style. It combines rectangular and flowing shapes in a style based on the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement, a century ago.

In the past, I have made similar chairs from ash and yew, which can take a very fine shape because they are such supple woods. Oak is coarser though, with less cross-grain strength, so it needs more of a heavy-duty construction.

The frame parts were were marked out from templates or rods then cut from solid timber to a curved shape using a bandsaw.

Cracks or sections of sapwood would get in the way of the cutting plan. Knots may add interest or they may introduce weakness, depending on how big they are and whether they are dense and solid or full of internal cracks. Short grain has to be accepted to some extent, but not if the frame members are thin or carry a lot of load.
 

Old-fashioned wooden spokeshaves have a good feel if the narrow blade is sharp and finely set. They also have the advantage that you can re-shape the sole with a block plane to make them tightly convex, this makes them suitable for fairing very tightly into concave curves.
 

The back components of the frame, including the laminations, came together at the first glue-up. The front rail then joined the two front legs and when the front and back sub-assemblies had set, the side rails then joined them. The arms came later. Many furniture makers recommend cutting mortise and tenon joints for curved parts while the wood is still straight and square. Cutting the joints before the parts are shaped means you can use machines such as mortises, pillar drills and router tables to align them. In addition, if you use hand chisels for cutting the joints or cleaning them up, you can clamp the wood down flat on the bench and chisel at a true vertical.

There is a big advantage in the Arts & Crafts tradition of cutting chamfers on all the edges (or arises) - it stops them from splintering. The chamfers also catch the light and emphasise the outside edge of the shape to give it clarity of definition. This is something that many pieces loose by sanding over the edge.

Where the ends of chamfers approach a joint it is traditional to stop the chamfer with a chisel carved end / chamfer stop. This always strikes me as a poor option because it leaves a sharp corner that can easily splinter. A better option is to continue the chamfer right up to the joint. (Of course, it is no use cutting the chamfer before you cut the joint because that will leave the joint looking very gappy.) I cut the end of the chamfer with a very sharp chisel, watching out for grain that falls towards the joint - this would try to carry the chisel with it creating a monster splinter. The way to avoid this is to cut extremely finely with a freshly honed blade.

For the mortise in the arm, I cut the top visible by the conventional chisel chopping technique.  If the chisel is sharp enough and the cut is light enough it makes a crisp un-torn edge, without any depression of the land around it.

The resulting chair was well received by its new owner. It captures the style of Charles Rennie MacKintosh, the revolutionary Scottish designer of 100 years ago, understood by few in his day but now immensely fashionable.