Windsor Chairmaker

In 2004, I attended a craft show sponsored by Peters Valley Craft Center.  One of the exhibitors was selling handcrafted windsor chairs.  The chairs were gorgeous and after exchanging pleasantries with the builder, I began firing questions about chair construction.   His graciousness eventually gave way to fatigue and he handed me a card with the suggestion that I spend a week with him in shop and learn to make them myself.  I took the card, made a mental note and filed it in a junk drawer.

Two years later, in a fit of late spring cleaning, my wife found the card - Peter Galbert - Chairmaker.  She remembered the conversation, knew that I was very interested in furniture making and suggested that I give Peter a call to get more information.  I called and yes, he was still teaching, but the next available class slot was a year away.  I hung up disappointed but after agreeing to call him back with a date certain to take the class 12 to 14 months in the future.  A few days passed and before I had a chance to call him back I received a phone call with the news that Peter’s student for the following week had canceled.  I was welcome to come up and take the class if my schedule allowed.  Things fell into place, as they do with important new adventures, and I found myself driving to Jefferson, NY the following Monday to build a windsor chair.  Nothing like being in the flow. 

From raw beginnings with a ten foot section of white oak, a three foot chunk of sugar maple and a plank of pine, I learned how to split a log into usable pieces and use a froe to "rive' wood.  I was introduced to the shavehorse, a centuries old small workbench design used by chairmakers (and others) to hold and shape wood, typically with a drawknife or spokeshave.  I received my first introduction to the lathe and got to experience a "catch" - an undesirable event that spontaneously occurs when you mix inexperience with a tool known as a skew chisel.  I got to beat a piece of pine silly with an adze, a tool resembling a medieval weapon that can be gross or  subtle depending on the skill level of the user.  I met my first scorp and travisher and used them to shape and refine a seat.  I learned to sharpen and use a cabinet scraper to bring out a glass smooth finish with no sanding.  I spoke shaved, sharpened, mixed and heated hide glue, steamed and bent oak, learned how to drill accurate angles, kiln dry wood, ream tapered mortise and tenon joints, fit and wedge and then learned the final ballet of assembling all the pieces we had worked so hard to create in just minutes before the Phoenecian-invented hide glue sets and makes a mess of the whole event.

I drank from the firehose for six days straight and went home exhausted and satisfied.  I dreamed of shaving spindles and had nightmares of the big catch.  My hands and back ached from the labor. And in the end, as promised, I had made an heirloom quality windsor chair.  I pranced like a peacock.  Some friends thought I had taken a chair refinishing class and shrugged.  My wife, forever patient and loving, applauded me as if I was a child proudly displaying his first poop after realizing, for the first time, that he could make it all by himself.

#1 ready for a milk paint finish

But alas, I had not made it all myself.  Pete made the turnings because a complete beginner (like me) would take days to make all nine pieces in anything close to acceptable form.  He gently corrected me when I tried to drill the holes for the legs in the wrong direction.  A little fix here, a tweak there and then a very attentive poppa as we assembled all the pieces.  The chair came together beautifully, but wouldn't quite square up at the end.  With the hide glue time bomb ticking, Pete finally took a dead blow hammer and, like a concert pianist, hit the right note on the arm bow in and the chair assumed its balanced and now final form. In the words of a Texan friend co-opting a famous French expression (with a Texas accent, of course) "viiiiiiiola", a chair was born.

So I was a chairmaker, kinda, and I had a beautiful chair to show for it.  I immediately and naively promised my wife that I would make at least five more for our dining room table.  I was smart enough to be evasive on the timetable but clearly implied it would be within the decade.  So, I built my first chair in a week - how hard could #'s 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 be?

#2 ready for final and first solo glue up

#3 ready for milk pain

As I write this post, #4 sits in my shop, ready for final glue up.  It should be finished by the end of the weekend.  Unfortunately, I missed the end of the decade deadline, but fortunately my wife is the patient type.  It has been five years since I took the class and the rhetorical answer to my question is twofold.  Lesson One: it takes much more time and a lot more work to set up shop and master the tools required to build windsor chairs than I ever imagined.  Lesson Two: a full-time chairmaker's shop is equipped with all the right tools in all the right places and has the bonus feature of a master's eye to keep a neophyte strolling down the right path.  Don’t underestimate the value of experience.  Lesson Three:  no tools and no master is a lonely place, but you will survive.  For the good news, the tool accumulation process is immensely enjoyable if you let it be, and skills improvement only makes the process of chairmaking more enjoyable.

#4 while fitting spindles

#5 and #6 will be started this weekend.  #5 will be auctioned at a benefit auction for Peter’s Valley and #6 is heading to a good friend who is an arborist by profession and keeps insisting on giving me beautiful maple and oak logs without charge.  I figure its time to show my gratitude.

As for finishing my own dining room set, like I said before, my wife is the patient type….;-)