Stick Chair

A stick chair builds its entire structure from round, individually shaped parts -- turned or shaved legs, spindles, and stretchers -- joined directly into a thick, solid seat with simple round tenon-in-round-hole joints, rather than the flat, mortise-and-tenon-joined frame construction of most Western chair traditions. Windsor chairs are the best-known stick chair family, though the broader construction approach spans traditions well beyond that one specific style.

Because every structural joint is a round tenon driven into a round hole, often at a compound angle, a stick chair's real engineering challenge is entirely in that one joint type done well and repeatedly -- correct tenon taper, correct hole angle, correct fit -- rather than in a variety of different joints the way a frame-built chair typically involves.