A Chair That Builds Itself

Frank Howarth is a maker who possesses the dual talents of woodworking and filmmaking. In this video, he uses stop-motion to show the construction of a spiffy lawn chair, from rough hewing the wood, to final assembly and staining.

He took 12,000 frames to assemble this, and did all the sound design in post-production. There’s something about it that’s whimsical — like the chair’s components are trying hard to put themselves together. There’s also a sort of haunting feeling as if the chair is being built by a mysterious invisible man.

It’s a novel take on a woodworking tutorial. There are no human bodies to get in the way of the action, and as a result, safety concerns the viewer may have are stripped away. The result is just unadulterated construction.