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.)
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"This is the best book on chairmaking. Period. Everyone knows that, which is why the price for the used books is so high. Go to Drew Langsner's website for Country Workshops and you can get the updated author's reprint for a very reasonable price. While you're at it, sign up for one of his classes. I learned more about furnituremaking and craft in one week at Country Workshops than I have learned over the past ten years reading every woodworking book in the library." M. L. Potoff Ann Arbor, MI |
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.
All books purchased from Country Workshops come with an author's autograph. While supplies last we will include for no charge a set of enlarged plans that originally sold for $16.95 when the book was first published in 1997.
| DL-13 | The Chairmaker's Workshop - Authors Reprint Edition |
$50.00
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Full-Size Bond Print Plans
The DL-08 series consists of individual copies of the same drawings that make up the Plans Packet that is currently included with orders for The Chairmaker’s Workshop. The difference is that these plans are printed on one side of bond paper, and are mailed rolled in a tube (no folding.) Page-size versions of these same plans are found in The Chairmaker’s Workshop.
| DL-08 | Chair plans from The Chairmaker's Workshop |
Any single plan $12.50 postpaid
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2 or more plans $10.00 each, postpaid
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DL-06, DL-07 and DL-12 are large bond print plans for chairs that Drew has designed and that have been the course projects for Country Workshops’ chairmaking classes. These consist of a full-size plan view with seat details, arm/comb patterns, leg/spindle boring angles, and a profile view from the seat up. (Leg and stretcher design details are left to the individual maker.) DL-06 is the rustic Windsor that Drew currently teaches during tutorials and summer workshops. (This is not the Stick Windsor in The Chairmaker’s Workshop.) This rustic Windsor can be a high-back or low-back version. The Hearth Chair plan (DL-07) includes two large bond print sheets plus an 18 page photocopy of an article on constructing a slightly different version of this chair, which originally appeared in “Woodwork” magazine, issues 58 and 59. DL-12 is a new design for a rustic Windsor settee. These plans are rolled and sent by regular mail in a shipping tube. Prices include postage for U.S. customers.
| DL-06 | High-back/Low-back Rustic Windsor |
$20.00 postpaid
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| DL-07 | Hearth Chair |
$30.00 postpaid
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| DL-12 | Rustic Windsor Settee plan |
$20.00 postpaid
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Note: DL-06 and DL-07 plans are design copyrighted © by Drew Langsner. Purchase constitutes a license to make one reproduction for personal use or as a gift. For all other purposes, purchaser agrees to contact Drew Langsner (at Country Workshops) for details regarding royalty arrangements.
OUR SHAVING HORSE, which we call a “shaving mule” can be purchased ready-made from us, or you can make your own. The Shaving Mule Plans Pack consists of ten 8-1/2 x 11” pages of detailed drawing and instructions.
| TD-03 | Shaving Mule Plans Pack |
$12.50 postpaid
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Country Workshops' Select Book List
Welsh Stick Chairs by John Brown. This is the latest edition of John Brown’s classic. The book opens with a section on The Tradition of Welsh Stick Chairs. Here you will find photos and drawings of some of the chairs that inspired John’s work, plus John’s take on the history of Windsor chairmaking. The second, larger section is Making Welsh Stick Chairs. This is not a how-to-do it book; rather we have here a very personal document on how John made his chairs during the time that he was also working on the book.
John Brown retired from chairmaking in 2002. He passed away in 2008. The new edition includes a beautiful remembrance written by “Living Woods” magazine publisher Nick Gibbs.
| ST-01 | Welsh Stick Chairs by John Brown | $22.00 |
Drew Langsner's Green Woodworking, is currently out of print. The original edition was published in 1987 by Rodale Press. A revised edition was published by Lark Books in 1995. We still have a few copies available of the Rodale edition. E-mail or phone us (828 656 2280) for a current price. An author’s autograph is included.
Contents include chapters on: Materials, Knife-Work, Hewing, Riving, Shaving, Boring, Bending, and Joinery. There is also a chapter on making an alpine style dumb head shaving horse. Soft cover, 176 pages.
| DL-11 | Green Woodworking (original Rodale softcover edition) |
$40.00
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We have a few copies of Mike Abbott’s revised edition of Living Wood available. It includes a detailed account of Mike’s adventures in woodworking, operating a woodland school and coppice, plus lots of good information on pole lathe turning, making a bodgers shaving horse, and more. Soft cover, 240 pages, with many photos and excellent drawings by Tamsin Abbott.
| MA-01 | Living Wood by Mike Abbott | $37.50 |
Videos of Special Interest
Carved Swedish Bowls with Bengt Lidström
Bengt Lidström is probably the most famous bowl carver in Sweden. This video depicts how Lidström carves a bowl from a split, half round log. The process involves axe and adze work, followed by extensive carving with gouges, including a decorative motif chip carved into the exterior surface. The final step is a multi-colored paint job.
In the video Lidström works on several different bowls, utilizing two different log blank orientations: conventional bark down (with the bowl carved into the split surface,) and bark up (the split surface forms the base of the bowl.) The latter is an innovation of Bengt's that allows him to develop unique shapes that are often influenced by the hull form of a Viking ship.
The video, which was recorded at Lidström's lakeside home in northern Sweden in 1998, has been edited into a 75 minute program by Rick Mastelli. A co-production of Country Workshops, Inc. and Image & Word, LLC.
Notice: This is not an instructional video. Some techniques that are depicted are not approved by safety authorities and could result in a serious injury.
| MV-23 | Swedish Bowls DVD |
$25.00
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SWISS COOPERAGE: TWO DAYS IN THE WORKSHOP OF RUEDI KOHLER. This is a beautifully edited version of the Ruedi Kohler video originally recorded in Switzerland by Rick Mastelli and Drew Langsner in 1988. You will almost feel that you are in Ruedi's shop observing this virtuoso woodworker as he handcrafts a complex and very beautiful Swiss alpine milking bucket. A copy of Drew's "Fine Woodworking" article on Swiss cooperage is included. A Country Workshops Production. Click here to view a Quicktime clip from the video.
| MV-21 | Swiss Cooperage VHS-USA format |
$10.00
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| MV-26 | Swiss Cooperage DVD |
$25.00
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MAKE A CHAIR FROM A TREE. John Alexander has produced this 2 hour video which shows how he makes a post-and-rung chair. Every step is carefully shown and explained, from splitting an oak log to weaving a Shaker tape seat.
| JA-02 | Make a Chair From a Tree DVD |
$25.00
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How To Order
Tools can be purchased three ways: Order by phone (Office hours: 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Eastern Time) using your Visa/MasterCard for payment; order by mail, by clicking on Order Form (you can print the Order Form on your computer's printer, but we do not yet offer on-line ordering); direct purchase at our store and showroom.
Country Workshops Home Page
E-mail:
Drew Langsner
Phone:
828-656-2280 (Daily, 9-6 Eastern time)