Appalachian Settin’ Chair
Sometimes called a post-and-rung, ladderback, or mule ear chair. I can offer them in woven rattan reed, cotton Shaker tape (in a variety of colors), or fiber rush seats. The typical primary wood for these is white oak, but red oak, ash, and hickory are also traditional. The chair is usually made directly from a log, not from sawn lumber. These chairs take about 20-25 hours each to build and are very labor intensive. I may occasionally have some pre-built chairs available. These were brought back into the public eye with the publication of Make A Chair From A Tree by J. Alexander. This particular style is sometimes known as a Jennie Chair.
This first gallery shows several completed examples of these style chairs.
A family portrait of the first eight of these style chairs that I made.
Three examples of this style chair: two with woven rattan reed seats and one with Shaker Tape, which is a cotton webbing.
Chair with a woven fiber rush seat.
Side profile of a chair.
Chair with woven rattan reed seat.
Side profile of a chair.
Chair with woven rattan reed seat.
Chair with Shaker Tape seat. These have a foam cushion between the webbing and are very comfortable
This gallery shows some of the steps required to build one of these chairs.
It all starts with a log. This white oak log let me build 8 chairs with parts left over for some other projects as well.
Marking out chair parts prior to splitting them out of a log section.
Several chair parts split out. The large ones will be posts and the small ones rungs.
Rungs shaved down from the rough billets of wood that were split. After squaring them up, they get shaved into octagons. I sometimes leave them eight-sided and sometimes smooth them on out mostly round after the wood dries for a few weeks.
These long billets will get shaved down to posts. The rear posts are the hardest to get right because of the tapers and relief cuts prior to steam bending.
The rear posts go into these forms immediately after steaming for a couple of hours. They stay in the form for about 2 weeks to set the bends.
Back slats shaved out from the wider billets split from the log. Some have been shaped down to size already.
The final glue-up of a chair. The slats get popped in later after steaming them to make the wood limber.