Fast Shipping
Most orders shipped within 24 hours
Made in the USA
All tools and books made in USA
Information You Can Trust
Authors & editors with decades of experience
Shop Collections
Customer Testimonials
'Clever and beautiful'
Crucible tools are clever and beautiful. Using them adds joy to my time in the shop.
– Jim M.
'Approachable Woodworking'
The folks behind Lost Art Press and Crucible Tool are the gateway to approachable woodworking. They consistently provide real-world, easy-to-understand advice and techniques. The products they have are beautifully made and will last a lifetime.
– Thomas B.
'Superb quality'
Lost Art Press books and tools are superb quality, and you'll never be disappointed when you gamble on a book that's a little more obscure.
– Steve D.
LAP Open Wire: Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026
Comments are now closed. If we’ve not yet answered your question, we’ll get to it soon! Join us again on October 10. Welcome to Lost Art Press Open Wire, where until 5 p.m. Eastern, you can ask any and all woodworking questions ...
LAP Open Wire Tomorrow (Sat., Aug. 8, 2026)
Tomorrow (Aug. 8) is Open Wire day – a chance for you to ask any and all woodworking questions and get answers from Chris and me, as well as from your fellow woodworkers. The Open Wire post will be live here on the blog at 8 a.m. tomorrow ...
Get the Pocket Book Set of Six
Get the information you need right at your fingertips with Lost Art Press pocket books – and right now, you can get all six for the special price of just $99. Though our pocket books are small in size – just 4″ x 6-1/2″ – each one is full of ...
Mind Upon Mind: Making Tenons Pop
From time to time, I get minor gaps around the stick and leg tenons. (I am not the only one, right?) These gaps become more apparent with the finish on, because they don’t reflect light in the same way as the surrounding area. I read ...
Planes for Joinery, from ‘Benchwork’
The following is excerpted from Michael Pekovich’s book “Benchwork,” which we expect in our warehouse any day now. And because the words alone don’t fully do justice to introducing book, I’ve included a screenshot ...
Video: Make a Gibson Chair with Christopher Schwarz
The Irish Gibson Chair is one of the most comfortable stick chair forms. With its raking back and low seat, the chair cradles your body in a pleasant and relaxing position.
It also is a fairly straightforward chair to build and is suitable for beginning chairmakers.
In this video, Christopher Schwarz walks you through how he builds his take on the Gibson chair. He uses common wood from the the lumberyard and (for the most part) standard bench tools, such as a drill and a jack plane. Few specialty tools are required. Plus, Schwarz shows you how to solve many tricky layout problems in chairmaking with a cheap construction laser.
The video is three hours long, but is densely packed with the critical information on how to build the chair and avoid the common pitfalls encountered by beginning chair makers. In addition to the video, buyers will receive a pdf of full-size patterns for the chair, which can be printed out at any photocopy store. Plus a cutting list and a complete list of the tools used in the video and where you can purchase them.
Though Irish chairs were rarely saddled, Schwarz also offers a stand-alone chapter on how you can add a shallow saddle to the chair to make it look more refined.
If you have wanted to get into chairmaking but don’t know where to start, or you just needs some comfortable and simple chairs for the porch or hearth, this video is a great place to start.
Technical notes: Like all Lost Art Press videos, “Make a Gibson Chair” is free of any DRM (Digital Rights Management). It can be watched one of two ways. You can stream it (after logging into your account here at Lost Art Press). Or you can download the video and put it on any device.
After you check out, you will receive an email that will give you access to all the video files and pdfs for the project.
Chapters
1. Introduction to the Gibson 3:29
2. Wood for a Gibson Chair 9:08
3. Shape & Mortise the Seat 12:28
4. Make & Tenon the Legs 19:35
5. Make the Arms & Drill Mortises for the Sticks 16:26
6. Shape & Tenon the Sticks 10:47
7. Fit the Sticks, Posts & Arms 19:44
8. Back Sticks & the Backrest 23:46
9. Saddle the Seat 18:54
10. Make Wedges & Glue the Legs 9:53
11. Clean up before assembling arms 9:37
12. Trim Legs & Assemble the Uppercarriage 17:22
13. Clean up & Finish 7:24