The Alpine Stabelle chair you see in the picture is an exceptional example of folk furniture and is intended for everyone who wants to breathe the beauty of the old European country style into their home.
Chairs like this are most commonly found in Southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic (i.e., in the Alps and their surroundings). Chairs in the mentioned area were known as ’Brettstuhl’, ’Stabelle’ or ’Bauernstuhl’, and in English they are most often found under the names ’Two board chair’, ’Alpine Stabelle Chair’, ’Stabelle chair’, ’Alpine chair’ or ’fiddle-back chair’. If you combine Stabelle chair type with a trestle table, for example, you can ideally fit it into the kitchen, dining room or porch of your old country house. It is very difficult to buy new chairs like this today, because they are no longer made industrially. You can probably find them either old or restored, but if you are a hands-on type of guy, with our plan you can make completely new, authentic two board chairs.
Dimensions of the completed stool according to our plan are as follows: W 395mm (15 9/16in), D 458 mm (18 1/16in) and H 911mm (35 27/32in).
You will be very satisfied because this model of chair has been used in Europe for centuries, so it’s been tested in practice more than enough. Of course, you may also order chairs like this from a carpenter, but nowadays you will certainly have a problem to find somebody who is both willing and knowledgeable to make them for you. And even if you find the right person, such chairs will certainly be quite expensive. They are best combined with large heavy wooden tables, benches and stools of a similar style, and if the table was placed in the corner of the room, then you would need a matching corner bench with some chairs only on the remaining free sides of the table.
You will need to make the Alpine Stabelle chair from well-dried wood that has no knots to reduce the likelihood of individual parts cracking while using the chair. You can make the seat and back parts from one piece of wood or from boards glued together; make sure that the boards have a similar color and texture to make the mentioned parts look like they were cut from one piece of wood. We recommend that you use 3-4 boards to make the mentioned parts, which you must tighten well with a clamp after gluing. Be sure to use some of the tongue and groove joints to make the back and seat boards as durable as possible. Usually maple was used to make Alpine Stabelle chair, but you can also use various other similar types of wood. The legs of the chair can look differently, but it should be noted that if you want to have an authentic country chair, the legs should be cylindrical in shape, just like in our plan. By the way, in the past they were made by hand (by using shaving horse and drawknife) and not on a lathe.
Alpine Stabelle chairs are not easy to make; experience and precision are needed, primarily for the making of woodworking joints. This is crucially important for the finished chair to be strong and durable. Traditionally, the construction of Alpine Stabelle chair is made by a combination of woodworking joints as shown in our plan or in the picture below. Although less commonly applied in practice, we think that the combination of woodworking joints as given in our plan is a little easier to make, so we have decided for it. Unlike the construction, which has always been the same, the appearance of the chair has varied through time, most often related to the back part. In our plan you can see the design of the back part that we have chosen, and in the file and picture below you can download 18 more designs for the back part. Should you not be pleased with any of them, we recommend that you try to design the back part to your own liking.
Usually, the Alpine Stabelle chairs were decorated with carving technique, or if they were painted a certain color, some nice folk motifs were painted on them. We recommend that you match the finish to other pieces of furniture in the room where you want to put the chairs. After assembling the chair, it is necessary to carefully trim the legs.
