Turned-Leg Ladderback Chair
With its roots in a classic three-slat design, Tim Manney's modern ladderback is built from straight-grained maple with turned legs.
Synopsis: This ladderback chair has its roots in a classic three-slat design. Bent back legs add a bit of liveliness. It’s built from straight-grained maple boards, not the traditional green wood split with a wedge and froe. The legs are turned at the lathe and then the rear legs are bent using a steambox and bending jig. The back slats are also steam bent. Clever jigs simplify drilling the mortises for the rungs and slats.
I’ve always admired the simplicity of the ladderback: It’s a chair reduced to the minimum components necessary to hold up a human body, nothing extra. For years I devoured images of ladderbacks, hoping to be able to draw on a catalog of ideas to design a good chair of my own someday. Two of the chairs that most influenced me were a three-slat ladderback made by Dave Sawyer and an Italian Chiavari chair from…
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Comments
It's raining jigs!
Beautiful ladderback and wonderful content for such a complex build.
I agree that hard maple is underappreciated. Folks make noise about curly and birds eye, but the creamy smoothness of clear hard maple, such as what Manney used in this ladderback chair, has its own magical quality, particularly when viewed and touched in person. Nick Offerman called maple the valedictorian of woods because it can do everything. Don't forget that valedictorians can look good, too.
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