Reply by Bluepine38

If you buy 8/4 wood you will have to have a way to resaw it for the thinner parts of the chair, so that is a good
excuse to buy an old Oliver bandsaw, or maybe a smaller one, seriously though, you have to have a rough plan
and/or layout in you mind then on paper first. Then you can look over your tools and find out what you can
handle in the way of cutting and shaping. Roy Underhill does manage to do a lot with just hand tools, but he
does have a few years experience. Go to www.pbs.org/woodwright’sshop and you can see what I mean. Not
knowing what you have in the way of tools it is difficult to tell you exactly what wood to buy, but rsmith, ralmand, and Cozmo35 have given you some good leads. If you can catch them on a slow day they might have
some time to help you decide. Good luck on your project.

As ever, Gus the 71 yr young laborer, trying to become a carpenters apprentice.

-- As ever, Gus-the 80 yr young apprentice carpenter