Windsor Rocking Chair

I really love these chairs.  It is nice to still be very happy with a design after a few years of seeing it.  With some designs, I will tweak them for years but this one seems to work for me as is.  Here I am trimming off the through wedged tenons with a Japanese Ryoba saw.  The only hand saws that I use are the Japanese Ryoba and Dozuki.  European saws just seem to take away too much wood.
See more about the Cod Rib Rocker here. TimothyClark.com    As I just checked the Cod Rib Rocker page on my website, I did notice that I have changed the grain direction of the seat on the new chairs. It now runs from front to back instead of side to side.

Windsor Benches: working with what you have

Right now, I have four custom Windsor benches  underway. Pictured above is one of the bench blanks having one of its legs holes drilled.  In the past, I have used small hand held drill angle jigs to drill holes in bench seats but nothing beats the mechanical advantage of a drill press to drill a large hole with ease.  The chain fall is the real star here can be easily adjusted up or down with one hand so that I can get the angle just right before drilling the hole. This way, there is no straining on my part to hold the seat blank up.  Also, the chain fall is mounted on a trolly so that it can roll along the steel beam that runs the length of my shop.   This tool can lift about a ton so it is grossly over qualified for this job but it works well and saves my back and arms from a lot of stress and strain.
This blank is for a 6' Waltham Bench.  Also under construction now are two 3' Waltham benches and a Cod Rib side armless bench at 4 1/2 feet.  These benches are not on my website yet but you can see my other benches here. TimothyClark.com
Thanks
Tim

Merry Christmas from Vermont

Snow is finally here and it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas...  We have a great place down the road where we have been going to cut our Christmas tree each year.  The spot is beautiful with horses, hot chocolate, and very nice people.  We always seem to run into friends there which adds to the fun. Melinda, the owner of the place, was nice enough to let our son Ben take a ride on the old black horse and Claire enjoyed being close to but not too close to Ted, the huge draft horse.

I did manage to get some work done also. I am finishing up a 5' Waltham Bench for the Park Hyatt in Washington, D.C..  It will be placed at the entrance to their spa area.   I am buffing out the milk paint before it gets a coat of danish oil.  There is a lot of buffing involved in the milk paint finish.

Happy Holidays,
Tim

Swivel/Tilt Windsor Desk Chair

I recently finished up another desk chair using my Waltham Arm Chair. These are really great desk chairs. I have always liked using a Windsor chair as a desk chair because I have never liked the institutional look of most swivel desk chairs. I do like their functionality though. This really is a great solution. They are very comfortable and they do look great. The Waltham chair has just a bit more back support as it has one more spindle and they are spaced just a bit closer together. The second photo is a retake of the Cod Rib Arm desk chair that I made a short while ago. Find both of these chairs here on my website.

Thanks,

Tim

Finished Kitchen/Work Stool

Here are a couple images of the finished high work stool. The extra round off of the top sides makes this a comfortable stool to straddle with a foot on the floor. You can also sit right up on top of it with your feet on the longer stretcher. The through tenons of the stretcher-to-leg joint makes for a very strong joint and is an interesting detail. Let me know if you like these legs or if you'd like to see something different. This stool will cost $450. Click to see it on my website.

That's all for now.

Tim

Work Stool

This is a new stool design that I am just completing. The seat shape is based on my previous work stool that I designed around 20 years ago. I was looking for something different and contemplated a round seat for a while but a round seat is much more limited in seating possibilities. This shape allows the sitter to straddle it in one direction and to turn it and sit right up on it when it is turned sideways. The new seat has a fuller relief of the sides and an undercutting of the ends that adds a visual benefit and is nice to feel when picking the stool up by its ends.

The through wedged tenon joinery throughout is new also for this design. The last design was very solid but this one is even more so.

I apologize for the terrible photo but I wanted to show the joinery before I trimmed the tenons and I did not check this image until after I had trimmed them. I will add a photo of the finished stool when I get there.

Finishing a Windsor Bench

These shots show a few of the final steps of building a piece such as this 6' Windsor bench. Japanese saws are used for trimming off rails and also for cleaning up wedged tenon joints. The grouping of tools are some that are used for mounting rails and for cleaning up before final sanding and finishing. These really are the most important tools in the shop. I can pretty much go into any shop and make do with their power tools but if I do not have a razor sharp chisel, cabinet scraper and proper measuring tools then I feel quite handicapped. One develops a feel for any tool but feel of a chisel of the weight of a mallet are very special. I feel very clumsy if I do not have the tools that I am used to using. I made the mallets in the image and have used them for years. One is for delicate strikes and the other is for a more powerful blow. The blue chisel is more than 20 years old and the metal is polished to a silky smoothness from years of handling. A new chisel has rough edges and milling lines that feel awkward in the hand.

Below is a movie clip of trimming the wedged tenon joints at the underside of the seat. These are the ends of the back spindles coming through the seat.

To see the finished bench go to www.TimothyClark.com

Have a good one,

Tim