A week in the Windsor Workshop Final Episode

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Questions, questions.

The legs and spindles seem to have just arrived from nowhere, unless I missed a step. I think I have just answered my question looking at them in the picture; I see the telltale mark of a power lathe's driven centre in there.

I assume from the shape of the "pencil sharpener" that the holes in the seat are tapered with the reamer ? What about the holes for the spindles in the legs - how do you drill those, and get the correct alignment ? I assume they are glued joints ? Does it get assembled (seat / legs / stretchers) all in one manoeuvre ?

Looking forward to seeing how you fit all those back spindles.
 
Sheffield Tony":1hay8s1v said:
Questions, questions.

The legs and spindles seem to have just arrived from nowhere, unless I missed a step. I think I have just answered my question looking at them in the picture; I see the telltale mark of a power lathe's driven centre in there.

I assume from the shape of the "pencil sharpener" that the holes in the seat are tapered with the reamer ? What about the holes for the spindles in the legs - how do you drill those, and get the correct alignment ? I assume they are glued joints ? Does it get assembled (seat / legs / stretchers) all in one manoeuvre ?

Looking forward to seeing how you fit all those back spindles.


Did I not mention that James had turned all the legs, otherwise we would not have completed the chair in the allocated time. All we had to do was clean them up and make them fit.

Yes, the seat holes were reamed, thought I mentioned that.

The drilling of the holes in the legs and stretchers are done on the drill press. All the joints are glued and the assembly method is stretchers to legs, legs to seat, wedge to legs takes about 5 minutes.
 
Ah yes, you did say that. I think I missed a bit reading on my phone :oops:
I did wonder how all that would be possible in a week if some had to master turning too !
Good stuff. Did you enjoy the travisher ? It seems to be a very addictive tool among our greenwood group - easy to get carried away with !
 
Many thanks for the post, It reminds of my first assignment of my furniture production degree course, which was about specialisation of trades in the furniture industry. Windsor chairmaking was centred in the Chilterns around High Wycombe, the chairbodger turned in the woods and sent the parts to the town for assembly.

There is a chairmaking museum in High Wycombe and the town was once a centre for furniture production with G-plan, Ercol, Parker Knoll, Glenisters all in the town. I was lucky enough to visit the Ercol factory and get shown around the steam bending department. It really is amazing to see how floppy wood can become when steamed!
 
Now its time to start putting the final parts of the chair together. First job is to get the arm rest to fit, this is again done with the pencil sharpener.
The get the required height we used some high tech equipment here, it was a thin stick 8 ½ inches long, with these in place we are now able to fit the continuous arm.

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Now comes the bit I wasn't looking forward to, drilling the continuous arm for the spindles, I didn't take any photo's of the actual drilling, I think everyone was too tense, get this bit wrong and the arm is ruined and guess what there were no spares made.

Let me try and explain, on the seat of the chair we had marked out where we were going to drill the seat, where the X marks the spot we punched a slight indentation. We now lined up the indentation with the top and the back of the drill over the spot and drilled. I know I didn't understand it either.
It must have worked because we all came out with hole roughly in the right place.

Drilling the holes in the seat was a lot easier, we looked through the hole in the arm and lined up the frill through the holes and drilled.

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Now having the holes in all fine and dandy, but will it all go together with the spindles and arm, good question.

Now its time to place the spindles in the seat.

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As I put these in I was getting a bit worried, I was expecting them to be in a nice row that would match up nicely with the arm. It looked to me a little like Stonehenge, definitely not uniform.
Oh well onwards and upwards, not much we can do now, perhaps I didn't get the holes as lined up as I thought.

With all the spindles in place, it's time to see if the arm fits.

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Panic over, the arm has pulled everything into line, I really a happy bunny at this point.
Got to remove the arm once more and put some glue in the holes.

This done all that remains is to insert the wedges into the splines on the arm and trim everything off.

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Now at the beginning of the thread I posted a picture of a continuous arm chair that James had made, now I've taken a photo of mine next to James's. Mines the one that doesn't have any finished on it.

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What I haven't mention is the lunches that are supplied with the course, hard to explain so here's a photo.

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Trust me there was more than enough to fill up six hungry chair makers.

I guess the question is, did I get out of the course what I was expecting. Well, everything exceeded my expectations and I came away with something that I thought was beyond my skill level. This was all down to James's excellent form of teaching.
Was it worth the money, yes without a doubt, and I think I speak for everyone who attended.
Would I go again, yes most certainly, but I've got to save up first.

I hope you've all enjoyed my week in the Windsor Workshop.
 

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Thanks for taking the time to write it all up Tony, a great read and very satisfying I expect :)

Cheers, Paul
 
paulm":2b7t1m6d said:
Thanks for taking the time to write it all up Tony, a great read and very satisfying I expect :)

Cheers, Paul

Paul

It was very satisfying, the chair now sits in pride of place in the living room.
 
paulm":943xijsh said:
Did you give it an oil and wax finish, or something else ?

Cheers, Paul

Paul

I've still to put a finish on it, James recommends a couple of coats of Osmo oil. I don't have any as yet but when it arrives I will put some on.
It should really bring out the grain.

I'll post a pic when I've done it.
 
That should bring out the figuring nicely Tony, especially on the olive ash seat, look forwards to seeing it :)

Cheers, Paul
 
Great thread, Tony - really enjoyed it. The chair looks excellent. Please post a picture when you get the finish on it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul
 
Paul Chapman":28798akt said:
Great thread, Tony - really enjoyed it. The chair looks excellent. Please post a picture when you get the finish on it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

I will Paul,
it will be in a weaker two.
 
Hi Tony,

Thank you for taking the time to post your wip, I have really enjoyed it.

You must now be the resident chairmaker. :lol:

Thanks,
Neil
 
Thanks for the WIP pics, I've really enjoyed reading this thread, I only wish I had the skill to turn something like this out, a very nice chair indeed

Baldhead
 
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