The Process
Each chair is bench made by hand using traditional woodworking techniques. At the Chicone School of Windsor; chairs feature maple or black birch legs, red oak backs and spindles, and a pine plank seat bottom.
After shaping the chair back and arm on a shave horse, the pieces are steam bent and dried. The shave horse is a traditional foot operated clamp with a sliding saddle seat. For making chair backs and spindles, this becomes your workbench.
Our students will rive their red oak for their spindles from green (freshly cut) logs. Each spindle is then whittled on a shave horse, leaving the grain unbroken from end to end. This feature of continuous grain gives each component its strength after assembly.
They will draw the seat pattern on the blank and then hand-scoop the seat contour. The legs are set using a traditional tapered lock joint, which increases the chair’s stability. Once the spindles have dried sufficiently, they are sized to final dimensions and the assembly process begins. The chair back and spindles are also attached into the seat bottom and again secured with wedges. Windsor chairs feature tapered joinery, weight on the seat of the chair causes the joints to strengthen not loosen, as is the case in traditional round tenon joinery. Their strength and stability make them a treasured American classic.
