Mike Jurnigan in Suffolk, VA
Jack,

I learned seveal low tech ways for checking dryness of Windsor chair parts. For spindles; If you take 2 freshly shave spindles and hit them together you will hear a dull sound or a thud. If you hit two dried spindles together it will sound like hitting two drum sticks together, a nice sharp sound. Since I air dry my spindles how long it takes is based on the season. In the winter in a dry heated shop in about 2 to 4 days they are dry enough to use, in the summer, here in humid tidewater, it may take a week to week and a half.

For chair legs and stretchers I heat my tenons in hot sand on a hot plate, Heat the sand to about 140 degrees. I leave them in the sand until the tenons go oval shaped and start to turn gray from the heating. By the way I turn all tenons approximately 1/16" oversize and then file them round till I get a light squeaky fit when I press them together. Heating them in the sand should only take about an hour.

Bows take about the same time as the spindles to air dry or even a little longer. Again the tip for checking for dryness is to rap it against a piece of dry hardwood like a spindle and when you get the sharp sound it is dry enough to use. If I want to "cheat" the drying process I have found that the sack back arm and back bow fit in the oven perfectly. 24 hours in the oven on the lowest setting and it is "done." When you do this method you will know it is dry enough because the string or wire that you put across the bow ends will have slack in it. In other words you will have spring in instead of spring back. Dunbar places the bows for his classes in his furnace room at his shop. A few days in there and they are dry. All of them come out with the string slack.

Windsor chairmaking is not really high tech. I am pretty sure that they were not weighing their parts in the 1700's. In other words KISS, no offense intended.

Mike in Suffolk, VA.