Make a Windsor Chair: The Updated and Expanded Classic

This is an important and useful update of Dunbar's original 1984 edition. It includes many of the improved techniques that Michael and his students have worked out during the past thirty years. I have the impression, perhaps from reading some of the reviews of the older book, that people have actually built Windsors using the 84 edition as a guide, so this book should be helpful if you contemplate building one of these beauties using this book as your only guide. It would also be a welcome addition to the library of anyone who has built a Windsor chair either on their own or in one of Dunbar's classes.Good as this book is, it does have some deficiencies. The main one consists of some gaping holes in the section dealing with the Continuing Arm Windsor. Dunbar has left the working drawing of the C-Arm, that appeared on page 139 of the 1984 edition, out of the new edition. However, he does give boring angles on page 55 of the new edition. Other important information contained in this drawing is absent, though you can probably figure out the missing spindle spacing in the bow simply by eye. In the section on assembling the upper part of the C-Arm (chapter 9 in the old book and chapter 11 in the new one) all of the pictures of Mike marking, drilling and wedging are in the new edition, but the running commentary, that represents 90% of the chapter's text has been left out. Finally, in the chapter on making spindles he dutifully gives the dimensions for the new Sack Back Windsor but does not do the same for the C-Arm. If you use the uncorrected lengths you will end up with eleven spindles that are an inch or two too short to fit in the new chair, a wasted effort, to say nothing of time and materials. I know the correct dimensions only because I made one in one of his classes in 1996 and have the chair as well as his class printout to guide me. Conclusion: I built my first Windsor in one of Michael's classes so I cannot honestly say how easy it would be to build one using this book alone; experienced wood workers: yes, probably; others: probably not. Even experienced woodworkers might, at best, find it would be difficult to build a C-arm just from the information in this book, but, more likely, impossible.I have a few other quibbles with the new edition. Mike has left most of the original book intact followed by information in bold print explaining new techniques developed over the years since the original edition was published. This is a nice feature if you are interested in the evolution of his approach to building a Windsor but it could lead to some disastrous results in actually building a chair if you are not careful.It would also be nice to see a chapter on the specialize sets of tools required to build a Windsor. Dunbar's expert knowledge in this area would be invaluable. Most of the vintage ones are gone or long forgotten and the newer versions are sometimes difficult to find and range from excellent to awful. You can find a few of them on his website, available for purchase, but some; such as spoon bits that can be use, with a bit of touching up, right out of the box; are absent from his catalogue.Despite these reservations, I recommend this book wholeheartedly. Put quite simply, there is no book on building Windsors that contains so much useful information.

You can glean a few principles from this book such as how the chair is held together by tension and by the use of wedged, tapered tenons; all critical things to know. However, his explanations of many of the key instructions for the continuous arm chair are poorly worded, unclear, and should have been augmented with diagrams. One gets the impression he is just trying to whet your appetite to attend his classes via this book, not actually explain how to do anything.One example is the diagram of the continuous arm bending form. Is it the new diagram for the new 58" arm? Or, is it the old diagram and you're supposed to change the dimensions of the diagram for the new arm length? If so, by how much are we to change it? The only reference is the bold print on p. 88, which says: "Our new c-arm is 58" long. The area in the center for the vertical bend is 3/4" thick by 7/8" deep. The distance from the center line to the drop is 15". When I enlarged my c-arm set, I added 1" to the height and width of the bending form block."Got that? Yeah, poorly worded, and one has NO IDEA whether the form in the book is the new form, or the old one. And, there's no way to figure this out on your own. This is particularly confusing because on the new seat diagram he clearly labels it as the NEW seat dimensions, which would lead one to believe that the bending form, which is not labeled as new, must be the old bending form dimensions since they're not labeled as new?The book is riddled with such examples. Mike knows his stuff but he should hire a competent editor for the next edition, if there ever is one. This edition is disastrous.

Outstanding read. It is a great informative book that includes detailed drawings and dimensions to create your own Windsor chair. I found my self penciling in the book to take notes very often and have even referenced back to it several times. Well done!

This book was very interesting and informative. I would recommend it to anyone who plans to build a chair to feed this.

A++

I will probably never make a Windsor chair, but this book will nevertheless have been money well spent because of the information on hand tools, hand tool techniques, milk paint finishing and aesthetics.

This is the best book on Windsor chair making I've ever read. It's great even for first time chair makers. It has excellent explanations of every step in the process. Finally, the photos are terrific in showing the set-ups needed in virtually everyphase. Keep it handy near your workbench.

Excellent text on Windsor chairs

The book is exactly what I needed. I am still working my way through it