The seat board was set into a slot cut in the side of the knee, all other joints where socket joints, in the main fixed by wedges. The pattern of rails varied and many of the rails would have been found timber. Birch was the favored material, though chairs in oak and even blackthorn have been recorded.

The knee would have been shaped and trimmed probably with a knife and axe for the most part. More sophisticated chairs would have been made using more conventional carpentry tools.

The main part of the structures is clearly the “knee” for the seat and back frame. According to available material this will either be two matching, slender knees to provide the right and left members, or it will be a single thicker knee which can be cut or split along its length. I have tended to favor the latter; you are bound to get a matching set and you have the advantage of the two inner edges being flat. This helps greatly in the final construction. Whilst both methods were used there seems to be more evidence of the latter style, it will have course have depended very much on the combination of available material and the tools the maker possessed