Build the Lincolnshire Windsor Chair

Here are the plans & patterns for paid subscribers.

Katherine on Friday morning.

I looked over at Katherine’s workbench on Monday, and she was gone. The seat and leg she had been working on were still there. But Katherine was nowhere to be found.

Maybe, I thought, she went to get some coffee or a ham and cheese croissant.

Nope. She was barfing in the bathroom – for the second time that morning.

Let’s back up a bit before the barfs. Katherine, my daughter and apprentice, had decided during the summer that she wanted to build the Lincolnshire Windsor chair as the second project for her apprenticeship. It’s a challenging chair to make, even for me. So I hesitated for a couple of seconds before I said: “Absolutely. Let’s do it.”

The chair is likely one of the earliest Windsor forms, circa 1735. It has turned legs and a steambent arm. But the big challenge is the seat. It’s saddled a full 1-1/2" on the top and is fully shaped on the underside as well. I am still learning how to do it well.

But Katherine was determined. So on Monday morning we began turning and drilling mortises in the massive seats. And that’s when the Tummy Troubles began. Was it nerves? Was it the brisket grilled cheese I had made her for dinner the night before?

After Katherine’s second round of Driving the Porcelain Bus, I sent her home to lie down and get better.

My friend Rudy looked over at me and the pile of parts on her bench.

“Should we work on her chair as we go?” he asked.

“Nope,” I replied. “She has to do this entirely herself.”

I wondered for a moment if this was the end of Katherine’s apprenticeship. Perhaps she was too nervous to tell me that she hated working for me. That she didn’t want to be a chairmaker or woodworker. And so her body and barfs were doing all the talking.

After a morning of working without Katherine, we got some lunch – Tokyo noodles from a local restaurant. As we cleaned up, Katherine walked in the door and stepped to her bench.

“You OK?” I asked.

“Let’s go,” she said.

And for the next four days Katherine worked her ass off, building a difficult chair at a pace set by experienced chairmakers. She began teasing Rudy about living in Germany (“Do they have electricity in Germany?”). And she began teasing the other chairmaker, Lee, about literally everything.

And on Tuesday she stood at her workbench, looked at me and said: “This is fun.”

Katherine finished her chair about an hour after I finished mine – not bad for a second chair. Now she just has some clean-up and paint ahead of her.

And then she must choose the third chair of her apprenticeship, which might be the most difficult one.

If you want to build one of these chairs, you’re in luck. I’ve completed the plans and patterns for the Lincolnshire chair, and they are available for download for paid subscribers. Below are two pdfs – one is a forthcoming article on constructing the chair with complete drawings, a cutting list and instructions. The second pdf is full-size patterns of all the major components. The sheet is 34" x 22" and can be printed out at any office supply store or reprographics firm.

Let me know if you find any errors. Just don’t let me know if it made you barf.