The design of my Windsor chairs are based on the best examples from the 18th century Windsor chairs. The structure of their original design is unmatched. These chairs are strong yet light and flexible, and have proven to last for hundreds of years!

     The modifications I make are in the shape of the various chair parts. The strength of a Windsor chair is derived not from the mass of its parts but from the way they work in combination. I take advantage of this fact and make all the parts thinner than in the originals. This modification gives the chair a delicacy that belies its strength. I am able to make the parts extremely thin using a technique where I rive wood for my chairs straight from the log and work it green. When you rive a piece of wood, just as when you split a bolt of firewood, the split follows the grain. With no grain runout, even extremely slender parts have the strength of continuous grain running their entire length.

     In the three main parts of a Windsor - the back, seat, and legs - the wood functions quite differently. I generally choose different woods to serve the separate functions. For the back, which is an elastic structure, I use oak or ash for their excellent bending properties and for their high tensile strength. For the seat, I look for a wood that caves easily, so I often pick white pine or sometimes butternut. And for the legs and stretchers, I usually select maple, which is strong and has close grain making it well suited for detailed turning.

     When I carve the seat of a Windsor, I take out as much wood as I can. I scoop a good inch of material at the deepest part. I do it for comfort, but also because I want the seat to be sculptural. I try to give the lines of a seat a continuous motion, with one contour flowing into another. I aim for a bold, crisp look when I turn the legs and stretchers of my chairs. Because this wood is riven, too, I can turn to very thin diameter in places without worrying about structural failure.