Drilling for Spindles Finishing Handcrafting a Windsor chair in the traditional method is a labor intensive task. The short description below will begin to acquaint you with the chairmaking process. It will, we hope, offer enough information to help you evaluate construction, and appreciate the craftsmanship involved. Start with the log . The delicacy of handcrafted Windsor chairs is possible only because the grain runs continuously through the parts.
Saws ignore the grain and tend to cause cross-grained weak spots.
A continuous straight grain can most reliably be achieved by carefully splitting the wood from a green log. Traditional Windsor chairmakers use oak or ash for the bent pieces such as the bow-back, and arm rail because of its ease in bending. The splitting of the wood ensures that the spindles and other pieces are formed of wood that is very straight grained, which makes it very strong, and is referred to as riving the wood. Read a description and images of the importance of hand crafted techniques. Images Shaping the wood.