Customer Reviews

Chairmaking Simplified: 24 Projects Using Shop-Made Jigs (Popular Woodworking)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book because I was interested in learning how to make shaker chairs, and wanted a thorough, comprehensive treatment of the details. This book comes very close to achieving all I had hoped for it, but it has a fatal flaw. First, let me explain the good points. The book does provide a comprehensive and thorough treatment of building shaker chairs from turning legs and rungs on the lathe through mortising the legs, shaping arms, rockers, and weaving the seat with shaker chair tape as well as rushes. The book is well organized and the author's approach seems quite appealing. The author does a terrific job of explaining nearly every phase of shaker chair building. Now for the fatal flaw. The author's approach relies completely upon two clever jigs: a front mortise rung jig (FMRJ) and a side mortise rung jig (SMRJ). The book provides (on page 67) drawings for the two jigs as well as some photographs of them on other pages.


Unfortunately, the jigs cannot be built with the information provided in the drawings. In the SMRJ, for example, there is a trapezoidal shaped piece. The drawing provides the height of the longer leg of the trapezoid, but not the height of the shorter leg. Since the relative dimensions of these two legs determine the critical angle at which mortises are drilled, you really need this information to build the jig. This dimension cannot be determined by other information in the drawing nor can it be determined from information given in the text. Furthermore, the critical angle is discussed in general terms in the text, but nowhere specified (had it been, the dimension needed could have been worked out with elementary trigonometry).

The situation with the FMRJ is not any better. One of the dimensions in the drawing is missing. Furthermore, the photographs of the jig in the book do NOT correspond to the drawing. Thus it is pretty well impossible to determine exactly how to build this jig. The only thing that alleviates this situation is that, in this case, the jig is used to drill mortises at a 90 degree angle. Thus, one can see exactly what is intended and, I believe it would be pretty straightforward to design a jig to accomplish the intended task.

One final caveat. The section on turning and sharpening may be a questionable inclusion. Other books dealing solely with turning (Darlow's books, for example) provide a much more comprehensive (and better) treatment of turning and sharpening. I suppose its inclusion can be justified on the basis of providing a complete reference under one cover.

Without the two jigs, however, the author's approach cannot be carried out. While some experimentation (involving wasted time, material, and money on the reader's part) may resolve the dimensioning problems with the jig drawings, it irks me to have to spend my time and money doing so when a competent editing job could have obviated the necessity of doing so.

The author came very close to having a true classic here (one which would have rated 5 stars easily, and was prevented from doing so only by a careless editor. My advice to the author: find a way to get an addendum to the book out on the web correcting these errors.

I found Chairmaking Simplified to be very well organized with clear photos and sufficiently detailed plans. Pierce specializes in Shaker style furniture, so most of the chairs in the book are shaker-inspired. In particular, the chapters on weaving cotton tape and cane seats were informative and helpful.

I checked this book out from the local library. It was an enjoyable read and still can be used as a reference. I chose to purchase it as a result of this. Great information about chairmaking from an experienced chairmaker.

I would rate this close to a 4 but not quite. First let me say that I do think that this is a book worth owning. Why? A few good reasons.
There are good measured drawings of a variety of chairs that create a solid reference to start any of the projects. They may be missing some details for the novice but basic geometry and some trial and error, which is inevitable, can figure out the rest. On that note before I continue... I am not sure what the one reviewer was complaining about in the front rung mortising jig drawing. It has all of the measurements to create the jig. Maybe mine is a revised addition. Also I like how the author sets you at ease and you feel that making compound mortises in a post isn't that big of a deal. In fact he helps you understand how being less than perfect actually can create a stronger chair. Read chapter 7. This is the part where you will see how he describes his simple method. I enjoyed his thoughts on different aspects of chair making from his 4 decades of experience. That said I wish that the text could have been more to the point and clear when it came to the actual methods being described in the chapter. Some parts I found I had to read several times to understand what he was explaining. This led to me realizing that he was leaving some things out. Little details that you could figure out on your own but what I seem to think is that with all the talking it could have been better used just focusing on the chair making method. Also I found myself flipping from one page with text describing what you are doing to photos or drawings showing you what to make or how to make it on different pages. This of course would interupt your focus. Good layout would have improved this book. For these reasons that is why I gave this a less than perfect score. I have been doing case work and other furniture pieces for some years now so I can figure out what to do but for the novice I think this could be frustrating and not in fact make chair making "simplified". However, all in all I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. I say this because despite the poor layout it has good information. I have found that you can never rely totally on one source for your reference material so you will probably buy another book to compliment this one anyways. Learn the concepts behind a method and apply it to how and what you want to build. I bought this book to learn about rung and post construction. I am not going to use his jig because I am not building shaker style chairs, though I am sure it would make it simple and would work well. I did however learn what I needed to know to feel confident in making the pieces that I want. That to me was worth the low cost of the book. By the way the 2 chapters on Windsor chair making was a real treat. It is hard to find a good book on that subject at a reasonable price. The two chapters are written by a different person so it is less wordy and more to the point. If I were writing a review on that part of the book alone I would give it a higher review just for the clarity and simple explanations and good layout of photos and text. No flipping from one page with text describing what you are doing to photos or drawings showing you what to make or how to make it. For these two chapters alone with the four detailed drawings of windsor chairs plus the "shave pony" drawing would be worth the purchase if that is what you where wanting to make. As for the chapter on lathes I can't comment since I didn't read it. I have all the reference on that that I need. I hope this helps. Buy this book.

I bought this book as an introduction to chair making. It served that purpose extremely well. Descriptions and concepts are lucid and understandable. Illustrations are helpful. Finally, although the early chapters are ideal for a beginning chair maker, the book has plenty of depth.

Highly recommended.