Finished chair - progression follows

Last year I built six of these iconic green woodworking chairs for our kitchen table and this year I decided to make three more as a demonstration for my Brown County Woodworking Club.

A progression of paper cord weaving. The first 7 rows are applied only to the front row to help close the difference between the front and back rail lengths. All other rows after that go in a continuous weave all teh way around the chair.

The chair style is a pretty classic east coast Appalachian country chair, but the design and construction was refined into a very elegant chair by thinning the profiles and standardizing the jigs and assembly by John (Jennie) Alexander in the 1970's until their death a few years ago.

When it is necessary to splice in a new length of paper cord you use a square knot and then cut off teh excess about an inch from the knot. Then you tuck the excess inside teh weave on teh underside.

I highly encourage you to go to the Lost Art Press website where they sell books, videos and templates for this chair.

Once you get it about 1/3 of the way closed, there is enough structure to stuff the seat top and bottom with cardboard triangles to add bulk and filler to the seat structure.. If you don't it will feel flat. A three frame progression to show how you slowly weave all the way around and as you go further in you eventually close the two sides first and then you have the front and back to finish.

I completed all the joinery and sanding a few weeks ago and over the course of this week I put 6 coats of boiled linseed oil / mineral spirits / spar varnish on the chair. This weekend I did teh final weaving with paper cord. Paper cord is essentially thick brown paper like a paper bag that comes in long continuous coils. When twisted into a braid and stretched it is quite strong and still readily available.

9 chairs Finished!