“First off, I would never have started a chair had it not been for Sam Maloof; his story, inspiration, and craft. I’ve had my furniture business for 4 years and wanted to design/build a chair for years but was too intimidated. I saw Sam on TV and forced myself to take on the challenge.”

“To me, a great chair design that sits well is like breaking a 4 minute mile; it all has to come together. I started small, making a few miniatures to develop my ideas. The end result here is what I call my ‘dana dining chair’.”

“The wood is 8/4 cherry, 7 pieces joined by glue, biscuits (seat) and screws. One-half inch cherry dowels cover the holes and from there it’s on with the sculpting. I use grinders, a convex spokeshave for the seat (initially), die grinders, rasps, an electric hand plane, orbital sanders, french curves, just about everything except TNT. My production time has decreased significantly since I completed the first scale chair, about 5 days per chair. The most difficult part is using the eyes to create symmetry. If the left side doesn’t mimic the right, it throws you into vertigo.”

“I finished the chairs with 5 coats of General Arm-R-Seal with a #00000 steel wool brush up in between and to finish, a light once-over with J.E. Moser’s paste wax. My one commission so far has been 4 of these for a guy in Florida. Huge props to Marc at thewoodwhisperer.com.”

This is the chair that I just finished. All stock is 8/4 and this chair uses the “hip joint” we were speaking about. The finish is Waterlox and I put on 6 coats just by wiping it on. Hope you enjoy the pics!