Aston Windsor Chair Shop
Aston, PA
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As a self-taught woodworker, I’ve made a good bit of firewood in the past 25 years of woodworking. Originally drawn to power tools, I’ve found a healthy balance between the satisfaction of using a perfectly sharp and tuned hand tool and power tools.

Windsor chairs, benches and stools all start as logs. Seat blanks are cut from the log using a chainsaw mill. The chair seat blanks are normally made from white pine or poplar. Bench and stool blanks can be made from a variety of woods, but usually oak, sycamore, and walnut. Legs, stretchers, crests, arm posts, arm rails, bows, and spindles are split from the logs using sledgehammers, wedges, gluts, froe, and froe mallet. Legs, stretchers, and posts are usually made from maple, cherry, walnut or sycamore and are turned on either a modern lathe or a foot-powered pedal lathe. The crests, arm rails, bows, and spindles are further shaped on a shave horse using drawknives and spokeshaves. Whatever is not used in chair parts will either be used to make canes, walking sticks, pens, or other wooden items or become firewood.