Entering my Windsor chair-making adventure and tooling up, while I have the funds, I am purchasing what I can and as quick as possible before something comes up around our home that my "machinery sell off fund pool" has to be tapped, naw naw naw, not this time, it'll be spent before we get a flat tire, or a busted water heater.

I purchased this set of tenon cutters and reamer from one of my favorite resources for Windsor chair making, http://handtoolwoodworking.com/

 

These tools came as a set, a leg tenon cutter, a arm-stump tenon cutter, and a 1/2″ spindle tenon cutter, plus one six-degree reamer and one 5/16″ dowel plate. These tools are specific to the Windsor tradition, I am beyond ecstatic to have these on my work bench, they feel great, works of art within themselves. They'll be a pleasure to use.

 

I can't wait to build my own shave-horse and sit in it, and start shaving, and rounding, and sawing and much more. Once I get going, I'll be sure to blog my experience. Thanks for sharing in my excitement!

 

By the way, customer service from Elia was perfect, nice guy and a joy to deal with, just in case anyone here is looking for some specialty tools for chair making.

I have enough trouble sitting in one , I know I could not make one......now a stool maybe and I have wanted to make a Windsor stool since I saw one in Wood

24 minutes ago, Gerald said:

I have enough trouble sitting in one , I know I could not make one

...sitting in one doesn't seem to be as bad as getting up from one. As for making one, I'll read your & John's blogs.

Sweet purchases John and great reproductions.

Originals are just something you never see in an antique shop yet you know they existed in large numbers at one time.

Looking forward to the blog.

Don't you have to learn how to Scorp a seat to make a Shave horse?

Herb

1 minute ago, Dadio said:

Don't you have to learn how to Scorp a seat to make a Shave horse?

Herb

No you don't Herb, you certainly don't, but hey, why not practice with it right!

I would, I don't think my sitter would fair too well on one of those rounded seats, it would have to be padded too with a padded back rest and recline to boot.

Herb

 

1 minute ago, Dadio said:

I don't think my sitter would fair too well on one of those rounded seats

My sitter gots padding Herb, still young enough I aint lost my meat yet, but if I'm anything like my Dad at 85, won't be long before my butt bones start shining through and my paints need a belt!

41 minutes ago, Dadio said:

I would, I don't think my sitter would fair too well on one of those rounded seats, it would have to be padded too with a padded back rest and recline to boot.

Herb

 

and a beer holder..

39 minutes ago, John Morris said:

my paints need a belt!

go redundant...

add suspenders...

just ask us older types...

9 hours ago, John Morris said:

won't be long before my butt bones start shining through and my paints need a belt! 

you almost got me there John...

skip the belt and suspenders... no need...

but you might want to stay out of the rain...

John do you round out your chair seats like the guy on you tube using the table saw. Looks like he saves many hours of labor doing it that way?

1 minute ago, Smallpatch said:

John do you round out your chair seats like the guy on you tube using the table saw. Looks like he saves many hours of labor doing it that way?

You know Jess, I could, but I am kind of shifting my work more towards hand tools, thus a good part of the reason I sold off all of my machinery but for one lunch box planer. I do have my Shopsmith for an umbilical cord or when it's necessary. I think I could do a chair seat on the table saw Shopsmith, but I really want to work it by hand.

That being said, when I was building my sculpted rockers I used electric for the seats, a right angle grinder with carving attachments, that worked really well. If you view my gallery of one of my rockers you'll see how the seat was contoured mainly by my angle grinder and some attachments:

 

But now with my growing interest in Shaker furnishings and Windsors, I find myself wanting to do it all by hand as much as possible. The table saw idea is a great one, I have seen it used before, as a matter of fact I used a similar process to create the arms in the cherry rocker featured above, by sliding a billet of cherry across the table saw in a diagonal direction just like you'd create cove molding on a table saw, that is how I created those arms.

 

But, ya, I'm trying to go old way on these classical chairs, hey, someone has to keep @steven newman company with his hand tool work, poor guy probably feels like the Maytag repair man around here!

Well good for you if thats what you want to do.. I have a few of those old tools but they just hang on the wall. 

  After seeing your new gadgets for shaping the spindles ends I assumed you were saving time in all areas.

11 minutes ago, Smallpatch said:

After seeing your new gadgets for shaping the spindles ends I assumed you were saving time in all areas.

Great point Jess, hey, even traditional tools were/are time savers, even to this day, a traditional tool can save more time than setting up a powered machine for the same process (sometimes). Those new gadgets I got there in that picture, those have actually been around a few centuries for cutting tenons (and they are time savers for sure!). Chair builders been using that style for a looooong time, mine are just new looking is all, they are fine tools, I like just holding them, they are heavy, and finely made. So now I gotta get from "just holding them" to actually making something! I hope you all will follow me along my new adventure in non electric chair building.

1 hour ago, John Morris said:

electric chair building.

There's a prop warning prohibiting that out there isn't there? At minimum probably against the law or something...

Just now, Grandpadave52 said:

There's a prop warning prohibiting that out there isn't there? At minimum probably against the law or something...

We can't even get em to the actual death penalty out here, take about 5 decades of appeals. I should make an ol smokey and send it to our governor, anonymous of course.

14 hours ago, John Morris said:

I purchased this set of tenon cutters and reamer

I can see it from here...

you need to augment your collection...

 

 

15 minutes ago, John Morris said:

We can't even get em to the actual death penalty out here, take about 5 decades of appeals.

I saw that column that Columnist Burt Prelutsky LA Times wrote some time back...

write a similar one and you'll probably get that 5 decades reduced to about 30 seconds...