Wood-turning treadle lathe

Treadle lathe WS 102

The Museum of Lincolnshire Life not far from the centre of Lincoln is a fascinating place to spend a few hours, really well run and just so much to see.  Only one thing is missing: there is not a single Lincolnshire chair in the whole building. However I did come across this lathe; many people ask what sort of lathe the Lincolnshire chairmakers would have used and this picture gives the answer. The treadle on the floor would be pedalled by the turner himself and after a full day turning out components I should think he would have been quite weary. One exception was at Caistor were the chair lathes were driven by an overshot waterwheel fed by a stream - look out for tomorrow's post ...

© William Sergeant 2020

The Windsor Chair-Maker from The Countryman at Work written and illustrated by Thomas Hennell, The Architectural Press, London 1947

 The Countryman at Work written and illustrated by Thomas Hennell, The Architectural Press, London 1947

A fascinating volume with wonderful drawings.

The Windsor Chair-Maker

Mr. Goodchild, of Knap Hill Common, High Wycombe, is the last of the Wycombe chair-makers to do the whole job himself, and unassisted. In this he is an exception among skilled craftsmen, who according to our common ideas have been driven by mass-production to specialise in some part and detail of the manu­facture in which their fathers were masters of the whole process. That this generalisation may be fallacious is proved by the fact that Mr. Goodchild’s father was not a maker of whole chairs, but only an adzer of chair-seats. That is to say, one who shapes the curved upper surface of Windsor chair-seats from the flat plank. So the present Mr. Goodchild is not simply the sole survivor of a race of craftsmen who knew and practised their craft from A to Z ; but he is one of those exceptional natures who cannot rest content with less than a complete knowledge and practice of their calling, in which they are the developers of new and original designs.

No one probably knows more than Mr. Goodchild about the Windsor chair ; for he has gained certainty, the fruit of lifelong experiment and curious inquiry, about the making and fitting of its parts and the quality and fitness of all the tools for that purpose. He has repaired chairs of one and two centuries old, and in taking them to pieces no subtlety of form, workmanship or material has escaped his practised eye. In his shop, besides the ordinary chairs with beechen legs and backs and seats of elm, are chairs made of yew, cherry and oak. At our first visit there happened to be some thick planks of magnolia and acacia-wood, cut to the outline of chair-seats but with the surface as yet unworked into curves. Taking up one of these blank seats, Mr. Goodchild set it on an ancient oak board by the shop’s threshold, and steadying it under one foot began with apparent carelessness to swing a large hollow adze upon it, chopping out a series of rounded chips. The heavy and extremely sharp tool was handled with as much freedom and expedition as a stick of charcoal in the hand of an accomplished artist. As we watched, the double curve at the front of the seat appeared, and the hollow in the centre, while it was evident that a flat margin of exactly the intended breadth and outline had been left round back and sides, and not one unnecessary stroke had been made with the adze. We noticed that the handle of this adze was not only smooth- polished from use, it was actually worn into deep depressions where the thumb and fingers of both hands had grasped it. Shaping elm chair-seats with this tool had been the elder Mr. Goodchild’s daily employment throughout his life. And this adze-handle had probably outlasted several steel heads ; for though the blade is heavy it is kept keen as a razor. Stooping to pick up my pencil I chanced to touch it lightly with the back of my hand ; it instantly drew blood.

Mr. Goodchild told us that he liked to adze out one or two seats at a time and then turn to different work; it is evidently the hardest and most exhausting part of chair-making : and has been generally superseded by machines. The first machine invented flaked out the curves approximately, and left as much shaving and scraping as before to be done by hand. But a second is a form of routing- machine which gets nearer to the finish intended.

The tools of the Windsor chairmaker
Auger, hollow adze, framer's hammer, compasses, hooking-up knife, turner's axe, dotter, travisher, cleaning-off iron, devil, steel for sharpening scraper (made from rubbed-down file) hand scraper, straight-edge shave for flat parts and smoker back hollow knife.

Tools for finishing the chair seat: wooden screwdriver and breast-bib  with strap over neck and strap around chest - length of tommy bar 7¼", stock and spoon-bit

The board for the seat is one-and-a-half inches thick and eighteen inches square, and is shaped with a band-saw and jig to the characteristic outline, straight in front, with a shorter straighter projection at the back. The “ blank ” seats are sent from the factory to Mr. Goodchild to be adzed-up and finished. Formerly a long saw was used in cutting them out by hand, a larger edition of the saw illustrated, the blade of which is tightened by a tourniquet.

When the chair-seat has been adzed it is not immediately polished, but holes are bored on the under­ side for the four legs, and from above for the bow (this is fitted on either side outside the back legs) and for the sticks and banister which form the chair-back. The holes for the front legs are bored upright, but those for the back legs are set outwards and rearwards. The distance between them is measured but the inclination is judged by eye.

The legs and stretchers (the horizontal supports connecting them) have been turned on the treadle-lathe. In this work a boy sometimes assists, for it is nearly impossible to hold an absolutely steady chisel whilst supplying the motive-power with one foot. The chair-legs are made of split beech-logs, shaved up with a drawknife on the frame and seat called a “ horse.” Only two or three chisels are used : the pattern is a narrow board with a few “ nicks ” in it, placed between the chucks and under the leg which is being turned. The swelled curve of the leg, and the rings upon it, appear swiftly and as if inevitably.

The legs are wedged into place between three “ cog-pegs ” which are inserted in the bench, and marked by a simple gauge or dotter. These marks are drilled with the stock and spoon-bit to take the stretcher. The front and back stretchers are also marked and bored at their middle points, to take the cross-stretcher. The three stretchers then form a horizontal H, whose free ends are now fitted into the four legs. Then the legs are fitted into the seat.

Top: Two chair legs (front) wedged up between cog-pegs for marking centres - grease holes - the spoon bit is dipped here as required); Middle: bow saw, bows in crate and cramp; Bottom left: bow made from yew bough with strut; right: bow made from plank with strut

The remaining work on the seat is done when it is set up in this manner, and the tools illustrated are used for perfecting its shape in the following order. The travisher, a shave with a nearly straight edge, but just sufficiently running-off at the sides ; the cleaning-off iron, a narrower but similarly shaped blade ; then the devil, a steel edge set vertically through the wooden hand-piece, and the hand-scraper, which is this piece of steel with its handle. There is a right way of sharpening the scraper and of holding it so that it will work. Its edge is not keen, but is formed of two angles, and is used with the oblique surface behind. To sharpen it a steel burnisher, made from a hard bradawl or of a file which has been ground smooth, is used. The last tool is the narrow straight-edged shave for the flat parts. The chair- maker provides his own wooden handles.

The chair-back is framed with a bow of which both ends are fixed in the seat. This bow is generally cut from a piece of plank, steamed and bent round a block which is clamped upon the bending-table by means of pegs and wedges. When dry it is removed and packed in a crate with others (so that their free ends are held to the same position) and where necessary a strut is fixed to maintain the shape, sometimes, as in the old yew-tree chairs, the bow is made not from a plank but from a bough, which is roughly squared before being bent, and more care­ fully shaved-up when it is used.

The holes for the sticks and the mortise for the banister are cut in the upper part of the seat, and the ends of the bow are “ boxed in.” The sticks and banister are set up into the seat, compasses are used to find the centre of the bow, and the positions into which the sticks must fit are marked with pencil. Then the bow is taken out and fixed with wedges between the cog-pegs with its ends upwards; the mortise for the banister is cut and the holes for the sticks are bored. So the chair is then fitted together, the heavy broad-faced framer’s hammer being used to drive the parts home.

Top: bending table and blocks; Bottom: seat and legs of a wheel back chair ready for fixing bow sticks and banister

When chairs were made for export they were not fitted together ; the seats had to be finished and the holes and mortises made, without the advantage of having the chair set on its legs. So it was held on to the bench by the weight of a heavy iron cramp, under which it could be shifted without losing a moment. A long screw- cramp is also used when necessary for bracing together the legs and stretchers, especially if it be a high chair with several stretchers. I never saw any glue used, but, whether used or not, there it was on the stove ; a simmering glue-pot being the one companion indispensable to any carpenter’s happiness.

The names of the commonest varieties of chair made here are the Windsor wheel-back (so-called from a small ornament in its banister), the fiddleback, the smoker (an armchair), the “ Chippendale,” the church chair and the child’s chair. A large chair of the smoker type had come in for repair, its wooden seat being most surprisingly worn through. The explanation was that it had been used in a chapel to mount the preacher, who stood on the seat and grasped the bow, marking his points with his foot.

Treadle lathe