You Complete Me.

The Windsor chair build is completed. Well, sort of. I still need to stain it, apply a couple of coats of red milk paint, burnish the paint, apply a coat of black milk paint, burnish that paint, then seal it with some oil or shellac. But the woodworking part? Yeah, that part’s done.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the uppercarriage assembly process. Those pictures disappeared a couple of weeks ago, along with my phone.

I did take a few quick glamour shots of the unfinished chair last night. Next time you see it, it will be coated in ugly blotchy stain (the stain always looks terrible, but it keeps from exposing stark white wood if the paint rubs off.

Full frontal. I love the way the seat looks from the front.

The spindle deck.

Angled seat view

Post turning detail. Not a bad job, but the bird’s beak (the detail above the cove) is a bit lifeless.

Leg turning detail. The bird’s beak on this turning is a bit nicer, but I could do a better job with the vase turning above it. Clearly I need some more turning practice.

 

Crest rail closeup. You can see the lines I drew as drilling guides for boring the spindle holes in the crest rail. Also, note the bamboo skewer that I used to pin the center spindle. I pinned the outer posts as well.

 

I used a raking light as shown to fine-tune the crest rail’s facets into a nice, flowing curve.

 

A Windsor chair is best viewed in raking light, I think. So much interplay of light and shadow on the crest rail, the turnings, and the seat.