Second Day of the Windsor Chair Class

Posted November 2, 2015

Ok, still raining here, been raining for 2 straight days, and they are calling for more of the same today. Maybe I should have taken a boat building class!

So today we are scheduled to continue with the draw knife, and complete some additional spindles. The type of chair I am making requires long spindles, and a set of short spindles as well. I believe the seat will also be started today. Carving the seat from some pine will be another physical project. Speaking of seats, the seat on my shaping horse is getting harder and harder. I am going to have to add a comfortable seat to the shaping horse, if I plan on using this thing often. I am thinking of a nice leather saddle seat like on a motorcycle but with a bunch of padding!

Ok, heading to the class soon. I will post some additional pictures and describe what we were up to today later this evening.

Wow, what a long day! The rain is still pissing down, and I feel like I have been run over by a truck. We made a significant amount of progress today with the spindles and with the continuous back for the chair. We took the draw knife and spoke shave and created the continuous arm section of the chair and steam bent the piece. It was placed in a bending form and then was placed into the drying rack. We should be taking the continuous arm piece out Thursday morning and start drilling it and piecing the chair together.

We also finished the spindles for the chair. We made in total 14 spindles for the chair! I am beginning to think that the word draw knife was a torture device created by a group of masochists. Don’t get me wrong, the romance of using hand tools is real. I was on the porch today, rain falling down with the sound of a sharp blade slicing through green white oak. It doesn’t get much more peaceful than that as a woodworker. The physical demand for the spindles took a toll on my hands and sitting on the hard seat of the shaving horse has my ass in a coma!

The instructors for this class are awesome! Tommy Boyd is very patient and is assisting us in getting pieces that are within tolerances for the final fit and finish for the chairs. Tommy was the instructor for my class making the shaving horse prominently displayed below.

So, tomorrow we start working on the undercarriage for the chair by turning the legs and spindles. Something that I am very glad to have a good bit of experience doing. Standing in front of the lathe will be a welcome change to sitting at the shaving horse. I will post more progress tomorrow!

Some pictures of the progress today:

The continuous arm being hand planed to thickness-