Windsor Chair Plans

Over the last twenty-one years a number of interesting and unique antique Windsor chairs have passed through my shop. I now offer for sale plans for creating one or more of these historic Windsor chairs. The first in this series is a  set of measured drawings of an Ebeneezer Tracy Sack-back Windsor chair. The original chair on which the plans are based dates to somewhere between 1780 and 1782. In addition to plans of chairs I have reproduced, I will make available plans for several of my more popular chair designs. All of the plans are based on chairs I have measured and built. The plans are cleaned up hard copies of my original drawings. As drawn, the plans show front, side and rear views of each chair in one-third scale. Templates for the seat blank and any bending jigs necessary to steam-bend  arm bows, back bows, or combs are shown in half scale. Turning profiles are reproduced in full scale. The plans offered will not in themselves teach you to make a Windsor chair. The plans are aimed at woodworkers who have already taken a chair-making class, or have made a Windsor chair on their own. Average ability on the lathe is also a requirement to carry this project through to completion.

 Ebeneezer Tracy Sack-back Windsor Chair Plans

(To view a larger version of the images above, please click on the image)

The chair from which these plans were drawn was brought to my shop in the Fall of 2002. Its owner knew little about the chair, only that it had belonged to his grand-mother, and was a favorite heirloom in his family. He asked me to make four chairs to match, one for each of his daughters. By the time I finished the commission the number of chairs had expanded to sixteen, as the customer's wife, brother and sister each wanted a set for their homes.

Tracy chairs are distinctive. This chair dates from the early period of Ebeneezer Tracy's career. The combination of Tracy pattern baluster turnings, turned bobbins on the ends of both the center and side stretchers, under cut seat at the front, blind mortises for leg tenons, prominent carved knuckles, double bend of the back bow, and lack of a name stamp all point to a period somewhere around 1780 to 1782. Nancy Goyne Evans states in her monograph on the Tracy family, that Ebeneezer Tracy did not acquire a name stamp until 1782, hence my dating of the original antique.  Deceptively simple in appearance, it is one of the classiest chairs I have ever had the good fortune to hold, measure and build.

A ten page set of plans, printed on 18 inch by 20 inch paper, may be ordered by email or telephone. Price per set of plans is $55.00. Shipping and handling charges are included in the price. Payment by way of check or Paypal is preferred. Plans are hard copies of my original drawings and will be sent in a tube mailer.

 For more information please see my contact information on my Contact page.