Taught by Craig Smith
A $100 deposit is required to confirm your reservation.
In this class, we will be building a ‘balloon back or hoop back side chair’, as seen in the picture above.
Students will work with a time-tested selection of woods chosen for their characteristics of strength, workability, and weight. The result is a surprisingly light yet strong chair. Some of the chair parts will be riven from green oak. Other parts will be hand carved using traditional tools including spokeshaves, drawknives, scorps, travishers and tapered reamers. While this class focuses on a particular chair design, the techniques learned in this class will be applicable not only to other styles of Windsor chairs but to other types of woodworking in general.
Over the duration of the course, each student will build their own Windsor side chair. Every session will be filled with brief demonstrations and much hands-on work. There is quite a bit of work involved in building a classic like this Windsor, so expect to be kept quite busy during this course!
In addition to the tuition, there is a materials fee estimated at $270 which includes all the materials needed to build a chair. It includes a completed set of turnings plus all the information, patterns and knowledge to build another chair on your own. While it is not necessarily encouraged, if you prefer to complete your own turnings the material and patterns will be made available to you and a small credit on the materials fee will be issued.