Spring 2025
June 2-6

In this five-day course, you will explore the fundamentals of Windsor chair construction and joinery through building a stool of your own design. Students will be guided through the basics of stool design considerations including strength, wood movement, and traditional/modern aesthetics. 

Our focus for the first few days of class will be on stool design and growing comfortable with spindle tuning on the lathe and producing repeatable parts with accurate tenon joinery. The second half of class will dive into seat shaping by hand and the production of angled mortise and tenon joinery as techniques for stool glue-up and finishing details.

The smaller scale of this stool allows you the flexibility to create an original design and the opportunity to turn your own legs and stretchers. You will leave with a stool of your own design and a working knowledge of Windsor stool construction. 

In this five-day course, you will start by asking what makes a stool useful and beautiful. We will talk about balancing form, function, and the technical consideration of working in wood, while designing for purpose and comfort.  Students will leave class with patterns and plans for their own stool as well as their final product.

After working through the design of our stool you will begin turning chair parts on a lathe; a fundamental skill in chair & stool making. During the first few days of class, you will aim for comfort on the lathe and building skills with roughing gouges, spindle gouges, and parting tools. You will learn how to produce straight and tapered tenons traditional to Windsor joinery and cover the production of angled joints on curved parts.

Seat carving and shaping will be done by hand using scorps, enshaves, travishers, and a drawknife. During stool assembly and glue-up, you will cover working with hide glues, locking joinery, and surface preparation. 

Time allowing we will discuss alternative methods for leg and stretcher production including shaping parts by hand and the use of a drawknife and spokeshave on a shave horse.

Tools:

All tooling will be provided for this course, however, if you have any chair-making tools, please feel free to bring them along:

 Recommended:

• Drawknife

• Spokeshave 

• Travishers

• Reamer

• Layout tools 

• Preferred PPE (school provides basic face shields for turning) 

Prerequisites

Open to all.

Class Information and Registration

Class is 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday in Building 315 at Fort Worden. Map
Please read our What to Expect page for general information about the School.
Please also read our Registration Policy.
Please sign up for the waitlist if the course is full.

Class size: 10
Cost: $940
Materials Charge: $150