A Hard Way to Make Some ‘Bulls%$t’

Behind the scenes with this tiny book.

Today we released “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t,” one of our pocket-sized books that tries to make chairmaking more accessible. The book is $21. But if that’s too rich, you can download a pdf for free here. The full-size patterns can be downloaded here.

This book is a personal accomplishment because it is the first of my books with no photographs. It’s just words from me and drawings from Keith Mitchell.

I know it sounds like a weird goal, but my unpopular opinion is that woodworking publications have become too reliant on photographs. It’s difficult to blame them. Thanks to digital photos, it’s cheaper and easier to cram hundreds of photos into a book instead of a handful of well-considered drawings.

And, let’s be honest, no one needs to see another photo of me or my furry-ass hands.

So when we set out to make “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” without photos, it took considerable work. In fact, the drawings took more work than the words. Here’s how we did it.

First, I built seven of the chairs…