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Handmade chairs and other furniture like our pioneering forefathers used are fast becoming a thing of the past. Guy Scroggins is one of a very few old-timers of the Ozark mountain area who is still making the rustic chairs just as his father taught him as a boy. On rainy days and when crops are laid-by, Scroggins makes and sells chairs for some "side spending money" as he puts it.

Scroggins has been somewhat of a wanderer over the years. "I've worked on major construction jobs in fourteen of the western states, and there's more of them yet to see," is his comment when you ask him about his past life.

"But Guy always ends up back here in the Ozarks after he has worked out a few months," his wife explains. "We sell our farm, Guy works on a construction job awhile, then we come back and buy another Ozark farm, and Guy starts making chairs again."

So the Scroggins have lived and are well-known in many sections of the Ozark Mountain area of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. And wherever Guy Scroggins is, if there is native timber, he is soon making chairs in his spare time.

MOST OF the chairs Scroggins makes are sold locally to his neighbors and to general stores in rural communities. Tourists oftentimes hear of his chairs, however, and he has sold chairs to visitors from many of the large cities in states around the Ozarks. He will not accept large quantity orders, because then he could not supply his single chair orders. For this reason he has turned down several offers by furniture dealers to buy his entire output of chairs. A set of six straight back kitchen chairs with a rocker or two is the largest order he will take.

Scroggins sells straight back kitchen chairs for $3 each and rockers for $7.50. These prices are for chairs with hickory back woven seat and lattice back. If the back of the chair is also bark woven, he receives $1 extra for each chair. No doubt he could sell his chairs for a much greater price, but Guy's old-fashioned philosophy of living may be summed up in these few words—live and let live. His simple explanation is, "I know I could get more for my chairs by selling through furniture stores and antique dealers in large cities; but many of my neighbors, and friends, and folk here and there need chairs and some of them couldn't pay more."

Chairs made by Scroggins are made to last. Many of these old-time handmade chairs have been in use during the entire lifetime of their owner. And they should last, because in the making, each part of the chair—from the legs, the rungs, and back slats are worked with the grain of the wood. There are no cross-grained pieces to break. Each hole and slot is hand formed and when the rungs and back slats are driven into place no glue or nails are needed to hold the chair together as in modern furniture. Upwards of two days work is required to finish completely a chair of this kind.

SCROGGINS FINDS Ozark hardwood the best timber for making chairs. Red oak, white oak, hickory, black walnut, and mulberry are favorite varieties with chair makers. And old-time chair makers don't buy their lumber from lumberyards; they want to fell the tree and choose the cuts to their liking. Butt cuts about forty inches in length cut from trees about a foot in diameter are suitable for chair making. These butt cuts are split into wedge shaped bolts. The bolts are then placed in a vat of water and boiled for fifteen minutes, after which they are removed from the water and placed on end in the shade of a tree for three or four days to drain and dry. This procedure is an old secret method of quick curing wood for immediate use. The boiling water removes the sap from the wood, and wood cured in this way will not crack like kiln dried wood. Scroggins uses an old hot water tank with one side cut out for a vat.

Few tools are needed for making chairs of this kind. A cross-cut saw and axe for tree felling, hatchet, drawknife, brace and bit, a couple of wood chisels, a wooden mallet made from a section of a tree limb, and a sharp pocket knife are all the hand tools that Scroggins uses.

A lathe to turn out the legs is the only powered tool needed. Scroggins began making chairs with a foot-powered lathe, but he now uses a lathe powered by a ¼-horsepower electric motor. Scroggins uses a gouge chisel, a smoothing chisel, and sandpaper in the leg turning operation.

After the wood bolts have cured for three or four days the bark is chipped off, and they are split again into pieces about two and one-half or three inches in diameter in the rough. These rough cuts are then turned down in the lathe for chair legs. The largest diameter of the chair legs is one and three-quarter inches, and the rings at the top and bottom and between the rungs can be cut to suit. The average height for the back legs of a straight chair is about thirty-five inches, and the front legs are about eighteen inches.

The smaller pieces left when splitting the bolts are used to make the chair rungs. These rungs are worked with the grain of the wood by using the drawknife and pocket knife. An old-time "shaving horse" forms a seat and vise for holding the piece of wood while it is being worked. The chair rungs measure ⁵/8 inch in diameter on the ends and are slightly larger in the center for additional strength. The three side rungs on each side of the chair are about 14½ inches long, the two front rungs are about 18½ inches long, the bottom rung in the back is about 14½ inches long, and the seat rung in the back is about 15½ inches long. Holes in the legs for the rungs are drilled in the proper places with a ⁵/8-inch bit to a depth of 1¼ inches.

The back slats are split with the grain of the wood and formed with the drawknife to about ³/8 inch thick, 2½ inches wide, and eighteen inches in length. These slats are put into boiling water for a few minutes and then placed alternately in a shaping form to dry. This shaping form is made by placing three one-by-three-inch boards four feet long about nine inches apart and then nailing another board firmly across one end of the three upright boards. After drying for a few days in the shaping form, the slats can be removed from the form and they will remain in the curved shape to fit the back of a person sitting in the chair. When assembled in the chair, the top slat is about eighteen inches long and each slat decreases in length nearer the seat. The ends of each slat are cut to ¼ inch thick by two inches wide and driven into corresponding size slots cut in the back posts to about ²/3 the diameter of the post.

In assembling his chairs, Scroggins uses a wooden mallet made from a tree limb. This wooden mallet leaves no marks on the chair parts when they are driven together. Scroggins makes all joints fit perfectly, and when the chair parts are assembled no glue or nails are needed to hold it together.

AFTER THE chair framework has been assembled, the next phase of construction is weaving the hickory bark seat. The best bark for chair seats is white hickory bark. A small white hickory tree is felled, and the rough outer bark is chipped off the tree body. Then strips of inner bark about one inch wide are stripped lengthwise off the log with the drawknife. These strips are rolled up into oblong balls about six inches in diameter and put into boiling water for a few minutes. The balls of bark are then removed and placed in a shady place to drain and dry for a day or so. Should the bark become too dry before being used, placing it in warm water for a few minutes before using will renew its pliancy and toughness.

In weaving the seat, the bark strip is looped around the front and back seat rungs first. Then the bark strip is woven across the seat top around the side rungs and woven underneath as well. By interlacing the strips in a sequence of over one and under two laps, a pleasing design is formed. Since the bark strips are only the length of the log from which they were cut, the method as shown in the figure is used to connect the strips together to form a continuous strip when weaving the chair seat. These splices in the bark strips can be woven underneath another strip so that the splice does not show. Remember that the bark should be slightly moist and pliant when weaving the chair seat, and keep all slack pulled out of the strip as the weaving progresses. Then, when the bark dries, the chair seat is rigid; and the cross-weaving holds the chair framework together more firmly than any other type of seat covering.

Rocking chairs are made on the same general layout as the straight chairs. For the rocker, Scroggins cuts a pattern from an old chair rocker and uses this pattern to cut rockers for his rocking chairs. The height of the seat to the floor can also be varied to suit the needs of the customer for whom he is making the chair. Also remember that the dimensions given for making the straight back and rocking type chairs are average, and Scroggins will make either one in a size to fit the needs of any customer. He also makes foot stools of various sizes in the same style as his chairs.

When Scroggins completes the assembly of a chair, he gives the framework one coat of clear varnish. Most customers are satisfied with this simple finish. However, if they wish a more complete decoration, this coat of varnish forms a perfect base for almost any kind of finish.

YES, HOMEMADE chair makers are disappearing. Chair making is fast becoming a lost art. Many residents of timbered areas could profitably emulate this hobby as a sideline to their farm work or other work, and in almost any rural community a person can sell locally all the chairs he can produce.

So 80-year-old Guy Scroggins, who for sixty-five years has followed his chosen hobby, can well be an example to many of us who are looking forward to retirement and social security. Guy Scroggins makes his own security.