Hello All,

Just wanted to share a weekend score! Picked this bandsaw up on Sunday for 50 bucks after seeing it in the local Craigslist under general items for sale. I am very lucky that it was posted there because if it was posted in tools for sale it wouldn’t have lasted. As you can see from the pictures most of the rust is just on the surface. The motor is not shown in the pictures but did come with the saw. It is a General Electric motor with oil reserviors that keep the bearings lubricated.

I would get so mad when I would go to OWWM and see the old arn that guys would score for ridiculously low prices. I’m happy to say that I have finally found a diamond in the rough. The dog is guarding it with her life!

I’ll post restored picks once I am done.

Forgot to mention it came with the light! I took it off so it wouldn’t get damaged.

Hello All,

I went to visit the Windsor Institute in Hampton NH again, this time to make a Continuous Arm Windsor. A great time was had by all and once again I was not disappointed by using this time as a family vacation. The weather couldn’t have been better to be near the beach, so my wife and boys had a great time as well.
This is not my favorite Windsor but it is hard to argue with the beauty of this chair. This chair is difficult because of the complex bend invovled with making the arm. There was only one complete failure out of 18 bends. There are spare completed arms available for just such a situation. The carving of a shield seat has you wondering if you are ever going to be able to make it look like the model chair.There is so much material that has to be removed to make the front of the seat look so wafer thin. The seat has to be studied to be able to duplicate the symmetry. Just when you think you have the seat complete you notice a sublte difference and feel the need to struggle to attain perfection. I loved every minute of it.

I have already made arrangements to return to the Institute in April to build a NYC bow back. Hope you enjoy the chair as much as I enjoyed building it.

Hello Folks,

This chair is not complete but as complete as I was able to get it for travel. I came home yesteday from the Windsor Institute feeling refreshed and glad that I was able to attend this class. There were only seven of us in a building that comfortably houses 16 students, which made for plenty of room to spread out and build our chairs. This is a great experience if you are able to save enough to attend one of Mike’s classes. We were the first class for 2009 and I hope for Mike’s sake that this class size is not a sign of the times.

I especially enjoyed this class because the Nantucket is in my opinion the most comfortable Windsor chair. The seat is wide, there is no arm that supports the spindles, and the arms curve makes for a comfortable arm rest. The build was not difficult because of the chair classes I had taken previously, but getting the arms just right was a challenge. Due to the grain orientation of the arm stock, and the pressure that needs to be applied to the stiles with the arm, it is necessary to get a fit that does not stress the arm side to side. The spindles or the arm stumps cannot put any twisting pressure on the arms or they could split. Unfortunately, I was able to witness this first hand as my benchmate had his arm split during installation. This is very disheartening because there is quite a bit of effort put forth carving the knuckles to match the opposite arm. Fortunately, he was able to salvage the arm with some glue and clamps. Seeing this take place will make me very cautious about the test fit of my arms before installation.

I hope you enjoy the pics as much as I enjoyed the class. When my chair is complete I will post more pics. It may be some time from now if my arms don’t cooperate!

Hello All,

I bought this beauty some time ago on Ebay, a Vintage 1950’s 10” Delta Homecraft new still in its original box. The original invoice for the order was with the operational literature. I had previously purchased an old 14” Delta bandsaw but when I saw this baby I had to have it. My intention was that it would be for my boys, 9 and 6, to start out into woodworking. LOL It really is a great saw and they have both used it for various little projects. I use it to resaw the oak that I split for chair spindles. Time spent with the two of them as they work on their creations is priceless. Karson’s post will enable us to work even safer than before. Thanks Karson.

This saw needed a slight modification due to no guard on the back side of the upper wheel. I traced out some 1/4” plywood, painted it and installed it over the front cover bolts. Now I can make blade tension adjustments without having to worry about losing a finger. This may be a trip down memory lane for some so enjoy the pics.

Hello All,

As promised I am posting this Rocker finished. I made this rocker at home after attending a class at the Windsor Institute in NH this May and was fortunate enough to have it when a potential customer came down the pike. A friend of mine that I attended my first Windsor chair class with had enough faith in my abilities to refer me to a friend of his that was looking for a Windsor Rocking Chair. I sent pics on to him and he was satisfied with how the chair looked in the raw. This chair has taken me way too long to get painted and polyed because as you can see from the pics I have been busy building a deck as well. The finish on the chair is mahogany analine dye, followed by 2 coats of black Old Fashioned Milk Paint, and 2 coats of Minwax wipe-on satin poly. I can’t wait to deliver this chair so I can make my first sale official.

Hello All,

As promised I am posting my first Windsor chair completed by myself at home with only my notes and pictures from my class. This chair is a bit more difficult than the Sack Back Windsor. The legs front to back have to be coplaner or the rocker would creep to the side. The spindles must be fitted tightly to the bow so that the crest is supported correctly. The mistakes that I made on my first rocker were easily preventable because I knew what to look for and how to adjust.

The small spokeshave from Dave’s Shaves came in the handiest while finishing up this chair. Fitting the spindles is difficult with the medium sized spokeshave because it hits the spindle next to the one you are shaping. With the smaller spokeshave you can move the spindle you are working on and easily shape it with the handle of the shave in one hand. It also came in handy shaping the tight curves of the crest.

Legs and arm stumps bought already turned. Leg bridle joints cut with dozuki and coping saw. Seat from 2” white pine boards glued together shaped using adze,scorp, compass plane,travisher, and spoke shave. Arm from rived red oak billet planed , steam bent, and maple blocks glued on ends then bandsawn to shape. Bow from rived red oak billet shaped with drawknife, forkstaff plane and steam bent. Spindles from rived red oak billets shaped using drawknife, spokeshave and small forkstaff plane. Crest from rived red oak slab brought down to size with a Lie Nielsen scrub plane, smoothed with a Lie Nielsen 5 1/2, bandsawn and shaped with a drawknife and spokeshave.

I will use a water based dye as a base coat, 2 coats of milk paint, and linseed oil to finish it off.

The closest thing to a nail on this chair is the oak pins used to hold the crest on the spindles and the rockers in the bridle joints.

Hello All,

For all you hand tool lovers out there here we have some of the finest hand tools money can buy. These spokeshaves are made by one incredible artist, Dave Wachnicki of North Conway,NH. Dave makes a spokeshave look like a work of art rather than a tool that you would use to shape spindles, seats and crests for Windsor chairs. His site is “www.ncworkshops.com”. I love using these tools even though it’s difficult not to just want to display them in a case on a wall. The top shave is a large one used for shaping shield seats, the middle shave is a compass shave that is rounded for shaping inside curves, the bottom shave is a small compass shave used for those hard to reach places during shaping. All of the blades are Hock Blades and though Dave used to make the compass shaves minus the brass insert he has added this feature to make the shave last longer.

The top and bottom shave arrived today and I bought and used the middle one on my last chair that I posted. Dave gave me some choices of woods for the shaves and recommendations as to what would look best. Needless to say I was not disappointed with the outcome. The beauty and symmetry of his work is incredible, so I just wanted to share. Sorry you won’t be able to enjoy these as much as I will. I’ll post the rocker I’m working on shortly.

Hello All,

This is the steam box that I use to bend the parts for the chairs that I am building. This box is quite a bit longer than it needs to be for my parts but I’m fine with that. I was just going from memory and pics of the steamer that was used at my classes which was shorter( 8’) and had a smaller diameter pipe(4”). Apparently my memory isn’t so good any more. I used a 10’ X 6” piece of schedule 80 PVC for the body, put a regular PVC 6×6x4” T in the middle and coupled it down to 1-1/2” to accept a piece of radiator hose which is connected to the water vessel. I use a propane camp stove for heat. The bolts that I ran through have a piece of conduit around them so as not to transfer metal marks to the wood during steaming. They are situated up at about half the diameter of the pipe. One end has a glued threaded fitting and the other end is a loose cap not glued. The pipe is pitched about 1/2” over its length and a 1/2” hole is drilled on the low end to allow excess water to escape. This was not cheap to build but I feel I will eventually recoop the cost in chair sales.

Hello All,

Once again had an opportunity to build another chair compliments of my wife. Hampton, NH a small coastal town, is a great place to visit even if you aren’t going to build a chair. The crest on this chair is the only thing that needed bending and it was quite easy. Quite a few of us in the class had never carved before so this was tedious and challenging. The volutes were pretty straight forward but the knuckles took quite a bit of time. I had a great time as always and was fortunate enough to take this class with some of my fellow chairmakers from my first class. We have all been bitten by the chairmaking bug and were discussing when we would meet again in NH. For anyone interested The Windsor Institute is the school run by the Windsor Guru himself Mike Dunbar.

Hello All,

My 9 year old son and I spent some of this afternoon bending some arms and bows for soon to be completed chairs. He was all excited after we bent the first one and asked me why I didn’t tell him how fun it was. I reminded that I most certainly did because I couldn’t stop talking about the things we did in the Windsor chair class that I took last August. At any rate it was gratifying knowing that I could duplicate what I learned in the class. Spending the afternoon with my son teaching him how to bend red oak for Windsor chairs, it just doesn’t get any better than that.