The 11 boards: how a 1903 chair was designed with a hand saw

1. Two side rails — the spine, running front leg to back leg, cut with the tilt built in.
2. Two front legs — short, vertical, holding the front of the seat at fifteen inches.
3. One seat — a single plank in 1903; four slats now.
4. One back — a single wide plank in 1903; five fanned slats now.
5. Two arms — wide, flat, structural: they tie the back to the front legs.
6. Two arm braces — the small triangles under the arms.
7. One back brace — across the back, behind the shoulders.

That is eleven. When wide old-growth plank ran out in the 1930s, the seat and back became slats and the count went up; the geometry did not change. Ours uses fourteen boards for the same chair, milled from recycled HDPE and bolted with stainless. The history.