Chair plans available?

My wife wants 4 new dining room chairs. I don't normally use plans, but have never made a chair before, so I think it might be a good idea.

She wants something like:

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have spent a good deal of time googling and can't find anything, free or paid, like it. The closest I come is
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the arms look weird.

Could you take

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and just run the front legs higher and put an arm in?

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

Reply to
Toller
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> I have spent a good deal of time googling and can't find anything, free or

I suggest you get Jeff Miller's book on chairs (Taunton Press). He will spell it out for you. There is not a chair in the book like the one your wife likes, but the one she likes would be easy to build. Woodwork magazines 90 and 91 have a Paul Sellers article for building a Craftsman Rocker. I have built that chair and it would be easy to convert to the shair you want.

Reply to
Lowell Holmes

How about this one:

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help you to know that on this side of the pond they're called carver chairs. Presumably because the head of the table, who traditionally carved the meat sat in them.

Peter

Reply to
Peter Ashby

The book is called "Chairmaking & Design". I've never built a chair, but I have read the book and it seemed very good. I read it from the library and then tried to buy a copy and found it very difficult to find because it is out of print from Taunton. You have 3 options:

  1. Go to your local library
  2. Buy a used copy (currently on Amazon -- that shows you how good it is!)
  3. Buy the new printing, which will be released on November 1, 2006 from Linden Publishing. You can pre-order it from Amazon now for about .

Mark

Reply to
Mark Wells

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>>> I have spent a good deal of time googling and can't find anything, free

A library about 15 miles away has that book, so I will stop over tomorrow. Interestingly, they also have the only other chair design book in the area.

Reply to
Toller

snip

And don't look past ordering the two back issues of Woodwork magazine. Paul takes you step by step thru making the chair. Just leave the rockers off, re-shape the arms, adjust the leg heights and you'll have an arm chair.

Reply to
Lowell Holmes

Toller wrote:

Sure - you could definitely just make longer front legs and add arms. I'm working on a rocking chair right now in a very similar style, with arms coming back off the straight front legs. I got a plan from "American Furniture Design" for Christmas last year, and it was a good place to start for measurements, but the plan itself was pretty poor. One other book to consider is "In the Craftsman Style" (FWW): At amazon:

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's a good article in there about building an arts-and-crafts style chair, and though it's not a plan, there are some good measurements, tips, pictures of jigs he used, etc. If you go to the book page on Amazon, click "Search inside", and enter "the author based" in the search box, then click on the result from page 37, you can see the basic measured drawing. If you search for "trim the front" and click on the page 38 result, it shows one of his jigs. Aside from this particular chapter, it's an interesting book with some background on the arts and crafts style, lots of pictures, several projects, and several "inspirations". If you want to drop a few more bucks, the Fine Woodworking "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture and Cabinet Construction" by Andy Rae is an OK book and has some info/tips specifically on chairs. Another thing I found helpful when designing my rocker was to search google images for as many mission/arts&crafts rocking chair pictures as I could find, print out a few per page, compare, and pick out elements of various chairs that I liked. My final design is a combination of several pictures, the AFD plan, and some of my own ideas. Hope this is helpful, Andy

Reply to
Andy

This any good?

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Reply to
The3rd Earl Of Derby

Reply to
Toller

I used the Woodsmith plans you noted and modified them for an arm chair. If you deside to do the same, going for the Stickley design your wife wants, I would recommend that you widen the design. I flared the arms out at the seat but that would not suit the look you are seeking.

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Good luck

Reply to
Woodgit

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Reply to
Jerry

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