Exceptional work, John!
Exceptional work, John!
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Beautiful chair John. I always admired your flat work years ago and now I can look forward to your next chair.
Army Veteran 1968 - 1970
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Awesome chair John I like it a lot.
Aj
Great job. Congratulations.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Beautiful chair, John. You must smile every time you walk by it. Love the color. Your skill in turning and flatwork have come together very nicely.
I really do appreciate all the comments! Thanks for taking the time to view the thread.
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John-
It was fun watching your journey; thanks for sharing that. I'm so impressed with this. Having tried my own hand at it, I appreciate how much skill each step of this takes (and how tempting it is to take shortcuts).
John
That is just beautiful. A gorgeous finish!
Mike Null
St. Louis Laser, Inc.
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Thanks, Prashun. Seeing the beautiful work you were doing on your chairs was a real impetus for me to get started on this one.
Thanks, Mike!
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John, that is a work of art.
Mark, thanks for taking time to comment.
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John, what did you find the most enjoyable part and the most challenging part? What is your next project?
Amazing workmanship John, worthy of the highest praise and thanks for sharing.
Keith, thanks for the comments!!
Prashun, I will respond to your last question first - yesterday I rived the oak for the next braced comb back! I probably won't get really into assembly until winter, but over summer and fall I will do the drawknife and shave work, as well as the turnings if I can get some hard maple dry by fall.
At first glance, drilling all of the compound angle holes in the seat, arm rail, etc. seems daunting, but using the seat plan layout in Curtis' plans, along with the sight lines greatly simplifies that process. While achieving the correct seat contours was probably the most challenging task for me (this one isn't perfect by any means), getting appropriate wood stock may be one of the most challenging parts of building a Windsor. With this first chair I used kiln dried hard maple for the turnings, but finding stock that is thick enough is difficult. I plan to get some green maple and rive out the parts for the next one.
One piece white pine seat material is available, but prohibitively expensive. A one piece white pine blank can run as much as $180 shipped!!!!!!!!!! Kinda takes the fun out of doing a chair! I ended up using 2.25" thick poplar for the seat and it is a two piece glue up, which worked fine. I acquired enough for four seats at an average cost per seat of about $10.
In my initial post I commented that I have wanted to build this chair for right at 50 years, but the time, money and skills didn't come together until recent years. Over the decades, I have enjoyed acquiring new woodworking skills, mostly by trying new things that challenged me. This type of chair has it all - turning, carving, complicated assembly, etc. I wouldn't want anyone to take for granted the 11 years I have been turning and teaching turning - it has given me the confidence to feel comfortable doing the intricate legs and arm supports for the Windsor. So, for me the turnings were relatively easy, but I think the Philadelphia style could be quite challenging for a beginning turner or perhaps even an intermediate turner. The carving of the volutes in white oak is a bit tricky and requires some decent and sharp carving gouges and a sense of what the wood is going to do when a gouge is introduced. The volutes involve making cuts with and against the grain, and that can't be avoided. I didn't find doing them all that difficult, but then I have some carving experience going back several decades and have carved many of the platters and turnings that I do. So, I think it is fair to say that each person may find various parts of this process easier than others depending on their background and skill sets acquired over the years.
Using milk paint has its own learning curve, and I have much yet to learn about that. I noticed that in Pete Galbert's recent blog post he is exploring various new techniques with the paint. I will definitely alter some of my methods on the next one in an effort to get more predictability.
The most rewarding part, other than getting the chair finally finished, would be the shavehorse work. It is absolutely therapeutic! I could and did lose track of time doing the spindles, crest and armrail. By far, that was the most enjoyable task. I had not previously done much with a drawknife or spokeshave, though I owned one of each. I now have a much broader selection of those tools!
Sorry for the long response, but as you know Prashun, there are so many aspects to building a chair, many of which are unique to that task. I am sure my observations will vary from that of others, if for no other reason than we each have such different woodworking backgrounds.
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Your first windsor chair! It looks absolutely beautiful John.
The amount of detail and craftsmanship that goes into making one, that comes out looking like that, speaks volumes to your abilities in wood working.
Thanks for sharing the story behind it, and the result.