Chairmaking & Design

Chair Making is a real test of your woodworking prowess and this book is an excellent primer to get you started. The book is well organized and contains several projects from the most basic to most challenging. However, I would recommend this for the intermediate woodworker, not the beginner. A beginning woodworker may get too frustrated especially if they are lacking in the proper tools. In my opinion, if you want to complete most of the projects in the book you will need: a bandsaw, table saw, planer, drill press, router and router table (in place of the author’s home grown mortising block). Others have commented that some dimensions were off or not thoroughly documented but I found that the author rightly assumes you will find your way through as the introductory projects are thoroughly explained so as to give a strong knowledge base to tackle the harder projects. In other words, don’t try the difficult projects first! There is a ton of satisfaction to be gained by mastering this “art” and this book was a giant step toward achieving that goal. Highly recommend!

Really a fine book. Recently, I have been working a no-frills poplar extension dining-table following the indications of a number of Fine Woodworking's regular contributors. Both my brother and a good friend (both of them carpenters) said, whatever you do, don't make your own chairs, it'll take a lifetime, which then led me to a fruitless and saddening search for a chair on the various "unfinished furniture" websites. So, after receiving this particular title, I see that the included chapter on the dowel chair, which appears fairly easy to make, is perfectly analogous to the dining table I have been working on. So look around, I do not think you will find many books on the design and theory of dining-room chairs apart from this one. And thankfully, the inclusion of the "gallery of chairs" is only there to give one an idea of what it is to be a chair-design virtuoso. As for the rest, it thankfully concentrates on the essentials. For instance, roughly half of the designs as presented feature straight-back chairs, before introducing curved-back chairs towards the end.

Only a few pages on shaping or carving the seat. But still useful, since most chair making books really don't cover shaping or carving a seat. Most of the chair covered are for a padded seat. With this said, this 190 page book has a lot of info needed to make good dining room chairs. I only gave it four stars, because I was looking for info on shaping and carving the seats.

I am planning on building the chairs for the dining room table that I am finishing up. I bought this book based on Jeff Miller's reputation as a woodworker. Now that I have read a few chapters I am challenged by the idea of building the chairs. His approach is very straightforward and his method of creating jigs to make the process more precise is essential to succeeding with chair building. Highly Recommended.

As someone who has never made a chair or completed a woodworking project since high school, this book starts the surface and gives good general details about chair design, sizing and principles of choosing wood. It then takes you completely through six projects, each one different and more complex than the first. Together, these six chairs cover most of what most people would want to know about chairs (I think?). I was surprised by how closely the information inside matched what I was hoping for.

I am a beginning woodworker and wanted a book on how to build chairs. This book has some good tips on how to cut and finish the curved legs and arms of the chair. In addition it has pictures of various chairs that the author made. It was what I was looking for.

Although I give this book 4 stars, to be honest it did not help me at all. I was hoping to be able to make my own chairs but apparently lack the skills that are necessary...and the patience. I would say if you are a beginning wood worker like myself that this may not be the right book for you. That said, the book seems like to someone with the right skill set it would be very helpful. The directions seem to be pretty clear, but that doesn't change the fact that chair making is complicated!!! This book is staying on my shelf until hopefully some day I can pick it back up and actually make a darn chair. If nothing else this book made the chairs that I bought seem like a bargain, considering all of the work that goes into them!

Very good description and great detail for complicated process of chair making!