Chairmaker's Notebook

by Peter Galbert

Written & illustrated by Peter Galbert Whether you are an aspiring professional chairmaker, an experienced green woodworker or a home woodworker curious about the craft, “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is an in-depth guide to building your first Windsor chair or an even-better 30th one. Using more than 500 hand-drawn illustrations, Peter Galbert walks you through the entire process, from selecting wood at the log yard, to the chairs’ robust joinery, to applying a hand-burnished finish. And if you’ve never thought about building a chair, this book might convince you to try. Building a chair will open your eyes to ways of working wood that you might miss if you stay in the rectilinear world of boxes. Once you understand chairmaking, then odd and compound angles become child’s play. You will know how wood works in a deeper way (and how to exploit it). And you will gain access to an arsenal of open-ended tools, such as the drawknife, that will fundamentally change the way you work – plus expand the shapes and surfaces you can produce.

Genres: Woodwork, Crafts

387 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exclusively about Windsor chairs, but a lot of the possibly less obvious information is transferable to good ones as well, if you don't feel like investing in a suite of bodging and wheelwright tools. You'll have to learn how to weave or upholster seats elsewhere, though.

The illustrations are very good and plentiful, and while Galbert is unusually bad at intuiting geometry—or possibly believes that you are—at least it leads him to overexplain (and sometimes overcomplicate, but in an ignorable way) rather than underexplain.
The chapter on sharpening (and most but not all of the additional sections on it littered throughout the book) is, as is often the case, dumb as hell, and I'm pretty sure at least some of the ways he uses his kiln are, if not counter-productive, at least less productive than he thinks they are. Woodworkers will have their cargo cults, though, and woodworking is so easy that even doing things poorly will get good results.

(Speaking of doing things poorly, that other stereotypically Bad topic, finishing, also has its own chapter. Galbert likes to stain and then paint his chairs, which, history aside, is very upsetting. He motivates his choices, though, and while you can and should vehemently disagree with his sense of aesthetics, at least he isn't promoting anything objectively stupid.)

This is in no sense the only book you'll ever need to read about chairmaking, but if you're considering getting into it, at least it feels like a good first one.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the best designed book I have ever read. Hundreds of sketches (by the author) illustrate every page of the text.

[Richardg · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have a desire to make a chair then this book has got it covered. It’s one man’s (detailed) approach that gets into all the tips and wrinkles - you will still need to practice but you’ll know what you should be doing. The bit I find inspiring is not the finished article but the way Galbert finds satisfaction and fulfilment in the process. The question is less how long does it take but more how much did you enjoy doing it

[Shaun Deane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, beefy, informative and well made.