Some students have gone on to make chairs at home. Here are some of their stories:

Michael Toomey

In March 2010 I was fortunate to attend an Intermediate Course with James and came away with a beautiful Sack Back. This was a 50th Birthday treat for me.

I had always wanted to make a Windsor Chair, although I cannot exactly express why! Although initially a little apprehensive, a chair materialised before me without any real mishaps, (I’m sure we all know why that might be), and I determined to make some more myself; (chairs, that is). So when I left The Windsor Workshop I was also the owner of a Travisher, two Spokeshaves, some Windsor Wax and some resolve.

I needed three things: A place to work; wood of the right quality; the minimum, necessary tools.

I had two small sheds and the children’s play house, which I had my eye on. When the play house was vetoed I had to turn to the sheds which were already so full that one had to remove items before getting in! Some rationalisation later I had one shed completely packed and a workable space in a shed 8’x6’.

After some investigation it appeared that sourcing green wood of the necessary quality was going to be the most troublesome issue. I took advantage of an Open Studio week here in Cambridge and visited two chair makers to get some advice. One was a Windsor chair maker and the other a maker of Frame Chairs with seats woven with Wych Elm bark, who was also starting to harvest his own Ash that he had planted 15 years ago; unfortunately his Ash was still too small to be suitable.

As well as needing to source the wood I was keen not to spend too much effort making the tools and jigs necessary to make chairs before making my first! James appreciated this and kindly agreed to supply me with some green Ash and some steamed bows. I had already intercepted a friend’s Iroko Kitchen worktops which were being replaced as part of a Kitchen refit. These were finger jointed rather than biscuit jointed, oiled, 50mm thick and appeared suitable for the seats. I had noted that Iroko dust is particularly nasty, however!

So now it was time to tool up! I had various woodworking tools but not many that were applicable to the making of Windsor Chairs. I drew up a list and attempted to prioritise it; (I have since bought most of them). There were a few big items such as a Record CL1 lathe, turning tools and a pattern maker’s vice; (Rutlands has done pretty well out of me!) I also now have some other beautiful tools to join James’ like the draw knife from Ben Orford.

While I waited for the lathe to arrive I made a sturdy trestle for it at the end of the shed and started on the seat for my first chair, the Sack Back. (Well I already knew how to make one of those, of course).

One of my investments was an Angle Grinder with an Arbortech cutter to rough out the seat; using an Adze on Jame’s course had almost been the end of me! Shaping the seat was straight forward enough in the end, although I had soon ordered a Rasp from James; a serious rasp is a must, I think.

I had also visited James and had enough Ash for four or five sets of chair legs, ripped spindle blanks, steamed bows for 1 Sack Back, 2 Continuous Arm and a bow for that great arm chair in the corner of his workshop. The spindle blanks went into the water butt tied into bundles and with a splash of bleach.

I immediately went about shaping the spindles which is a skill that I am still trying to perfect. I find that I can ruin a spindle easily in the last casual stroke of the Draw Knife as I remove the last edge. I had also skipped squaring up the blanks with a spokeshave for some reason but soon went back to it after producing some rather bent spindles.

One year later I still have some spindle blanks in the water butt which I am currently shaping; they seem OK but won’t last much longer. (I’ve changed the water every 2 or 3 months).

Turning and fitting the legs also went without mishap. I still don’t have a pillar drill and drilled the mortices in the seat by eye and have done so in all my chairs with good results thus far. I have enlisted the help of my 14 year old daughter when drilling the legs and stretchers and was very relieved when everything fitted together so well.

So on to the super structure. After fitting the handle pieces to the arm bow I shaped this and the back bow outside using a drum roller fitted to an old drill clamped in my workmate. This was much safer than it sounds! I do all my dusty work outside apart from sanding on the lathe; I haven’t tried wet sanding yet.

Now it was time to drill the arm bow. I made a jig to support the arm bow at the rear and some dummy arm posts. After carefully marking up the arm post mortices I clamped the bow ready for drilling them. I’m not sure what happened then but things were a bit cramped and I think I got distracted. Anyway, I ended up rotating the bow around and drilling the mortices from the front of the bow instead of behind. I also added a bit of a taper for good measure and only realised my mistake when I offered the bow up to the arm posts. This was my only Sack Back arm but I managed not to get too distraught and carefully rectified things without the arm moving too far forward in relation to the seat.

Time to drill the spindle mortices in the arm. To help me here I taped to my drill a laser I had lying about, aiming it at the appropriate point on the chair along the sight line. I don’t have an angle drill but to drill the seat mortices I made use of the long auger bits I had mistakenly bought. These were long enough to reach up to the arm mortices and I could apply pressure from the top, (they have a small hole in the rear of the bit), and wind the bit in using a mixture of a spanner and ratchet; slow but accurate. Actually I became impatient and after winding the bit in I started to remove the bow and then carefully attach my cordless drill to the bit before continuing to drill the mortice. This worked well for all but one of the mortices, something I only discovered after knocking in the spindle which ended up about 1.5” into the chair at the top of the spindle. Initially, I wasn’t sure what to do about this, but I could fit the arm bow after springing it back and it didn’t feel or look uncomfortable; I had got away with it! In my excitement I also managed to swap and fit the outer, shorter spindles with their inside neighbours; I couldn’t believe it! Rather than cutting the spindles flush and redrilling etc I ended up making the back bow a little shorter, which worked out OK.

A day or so later I had finished my first “home made” chair, using thinned clear French polish to seal and a couple of layers of Windsor Wax.

I went straight into making my next chair which was to be a Continuous Arm. A few weeks earlier I had discovered another error on my part; I had not clamped the bows in a jig and they had “relaxed”. The arm ends had rotated inwards, the elbows outwards and the angle of the back was much reduced. I attempted to rectify this using some ratchet strap clamps, tightening them every week or so.

I retrieved some spindle blanks from the water butt and shaped them so that the shoulder would form a bell curve when fitted and I decided to have 13 spindles rather than 11.

The shield seat slowly took shape and soon after finishing that I had the stool finished.

I had been thinking about finishing the Continuous Arm with milk paint, black over red, and while I waited for the arm bow to return to the correct form I thought I’d make a round stool and finish that with milk paint to see how it turned out. If the result wasn’t great I could still do with a good stool in my workshop! As it happens, my 7 year old son decided that the stool was for him and demanded black over blue, which looks great. Applying the milk paint and distressing it was straightforward enough and I then applied a coat of boiled linseed oil and a couple of layers of Windsor Wax.

The arm bow had been persuaded back into the correct shape and so I moved on to fitting the handle pieces. The arms are quite thin at the ends and planing the arm surface was a little tricky, as was planing the handle pieces to thickness due to the arm curving up so close to the handle.

I made some adjustable armpost jigs using a piece of cardboard tube from the kitchen clingfilm dispenser by cutting a roughly turned armpost in half and fitting them into either end of the tube.

I made very certain that I drilled the arm post mortices from the back this time and I drilled the mortice for the centre spndle in the bow and then fitted the centre spindle. This helped me keep the bow securely in position while I drilled the rest of the mortices in the bow. I then decided to do the same with the short spindles before going on to drill the rest of the mortices in the bow, as any sideways movement of the bow after fitting the main spindles would have been be a big problem.

I was very nervous when it came to drill the mortices in the steepest part of the arm. The first one worked out well but when I looked through the other one down to where the seat mortice would be I could see that it was way off, almost aligned with the edge of the seat!. I spent quite some time easing the mortice for this spindle realising that I’d have to make some shaped wedges to tighten it up. In fact I discovered that there were a few other of the arm mortices that were going to need packing up; it was a good job I was going to be painting the chair, I decided!

During the making of this chair I had acquired a smallish Record Bandsaw from someone local via ebay. I was glad to be able to knock up my wedges in short time rather than cutting them by hand with my little pull saw! I don’t yet know whether the saw will be able to rip spindle blanks from green logs; we’ll see.

It was a great moment when I finally glued and wedged the arm bow on my continuous arm chair. I had managed to get Polyurethane glue everywhere and all over my hands. I’ll be wearing some gloves next time I think!

I finished the chair with two coats of Barn Red milk paint, one coat of thinned black milk paint, (distressed once dry), one coat of boiled linseed oil and finally two layers of Windsor Wax. It looks great and is incredibly comfortable.

So now I’m about to embark on my second continuous arm, although progress will be slower when the weather finally turns. I have tried to make my own notes as I have gone along which ought to help prevent me making the same mistakes whilst building on the things I did well, we’ll see;-)

I haven’t mentioned sharpening. I started off trying to use abrasive paper fixed to glass for my gouges and a strip of suede glued to a piece of wood for regular honing of my spokeshaves and draw knife, (with a little honing paste). I was particularly keen to keep my draw knife as beautifully sharp as it was when I got it; its  maker, Ben Orford, was good enough to talk to me about it. After a while I ended up buying an inexpensive Linisher which has both a belt and a wheel. I still use my honing stick on my draw knife occasionally; it just feels right!

I am still to make a steamer and the jigs to make my own bows, and I still do not have a source for straight grained Ash, which I will need to address sometime soon.

Finally, my thanks to Jame’s who is always there to reassure and advise, who taught me how to make my first Windsor chair and has encouraged me to make my own. If you have been thinking about having a go yourself, but have not yet done so, you must!