Woodworker creates his own Windsor castle in the woods

Chuck Haga
Star Tribune

Published Aug 28, 2002

HACKENSACK, MINN. -- Robert Dillon grew up in suburban Massachusetts but spent summers at a family cabin in Maine, where time seemed to pass in rhythm with the coursing of his blood.

"I loved the woods," he said. "I knew I had to do something with my life that would allow me to live there."

He earned a degree in forestry at the University of Massachusetts. The U.S. Forest Service sent him to Michigan, then to Minnesota. A grandfather left him his woodworker's awls, chisels and carving tools. One day, looking through a friend's woodworking magazine, Dillon saw a Windsor chair with its sculpted seat and curving, disarmingly dainty legs and ribs.

Determination, heritage, serendipity -- all help to explain why Dillon, 47, lives in a cabin deep in the Minnesota woods and builds Windsor chairs, rockers and settees, which he sells across the country via the Internet.

He had left the Forest Service and was working in a shop in Hackensack, making pool cue racks. "I had had enough of the noise and dust of a modern shop," he said. "I had my grandfather's tools, but I didn't know what to do with them, so I bought a book on Windsor chairs. Most of the people who make them now are out East. There are only a couple of us here in Minnesota."

He built himself a house on a winding dirt road shrouded by forest east of Hackensack, making a modest woodshop of the ground floor. He has lived there by himself since 1983, gradually building a business in handcrafted chairs that originated long ago and far away, but in a wooded land.

Spinning wheel roots?

The Windsor chair first appeared in the late 17th or early 18th century near Windsor, England, perhaps inspired by the spinning wheel, which the chair's splayed legs and spindle spokes suggest.

By the 1720s, they were common in southern England, according to historical notes on Dillon's Web site. They were usually painted green and meant to be garden or lawn chairs.

"The old-time makers weren't real particular about diameters," Dillon said. "You'd see a fat leg and, next to it, a thin leg."

Later, American Windsor chairmakers, centered in Philadelphia, gained a reputation for their sturdy, inexpensive yet fashionable furniture. New England woodworkers experimented with a continuous arm, which made the chairs even more stylish and comfortable -- and still cheap enough that people could buy them in sets of six or more.

Regular "stick-built" chairs, such as the ladder-back, typically were stiff and uncomfortable because the backs were extensions of the legs. Windsor chairs had more give because the backs and legs were separated.

Some Windsor chairs intended for formal settings were made from walnut, mahogany and other fine, highly figured woods, but most makers used more common woods -- birch and maple for sharp detail, oak and ash for strength and flexibility, pine and poplar for lightness and easy workability.

Dillon, a quiet man with oak-branch forearms and deep-set eyes, looks something like a young Robert Duvall, seriously intent in his role but not inclined to play for applause. It is simple, honest work, sometimes strenuous, usually satisfying, and he sets the pace.

He uses primarily red oak for backs and spindles, the pieces split directly from logs to get a straight grain and maximum strength. He uses riven, or split, birch for legs and other parts turned on a lathe and thick, hand-shaped white pine for his seats.

He cuts his own birch and splits it to get a straight grain, which allows him to make those parts exceptionally fine.

"This is how they were made in the 18th century," he said.

He steam-bends a chair's arms and bows, then turns leg stretchers and short spindles on the lathe. The pieces, of green birch, are set aside to dry. Larger oak pieces are shaved into shape and dried, and the seat is sculpted from a thick block of white pine with an adz, an ax-like tool, first, Dillon standing on the wood as he gouges away, and then a scorp, a shaving tool like a plane but pulled rather than pushed. As he cuts and shaves, the scent of pine rises as from needles carpeting the forest floor.

Pieces are wedged and fitted together, tapered tenons into sockets drilled with spoon bits. Some connections are glued. Others hold through friction or tension.

The chairs get a coat of milk paint with natural pigments, giving them a slightly crude look with natural colors -- barn red, Lexington green, sea green and black -- then finished with linseed oil.

Web comes to woods

Prices range from $270 for a rod-back Windsor chair to $735 for a fan-back rocker and $1,440 for a large, knuckle-arm settee. A child's sack-back, 26 inches tall, is $290. Prices are slightly higher for chairs with distressed paint.

Bob Dillon (no, he doesn't sing) used to sell his chairs at craft shows, but the travel was a grind. "And a lot of times, you walked away empty-handed," he said.

In 1999, he built the Web site. "It took a few months, but by the end of the year it was getting some real traffic," he said. "Now, I'm 10 to 14 months behind on my orders."

It takes him about three good days of focused work to produce a sackback Windsor chair, his most popular. Buyers often order sets of six, including two armchairs and four bow-backs, for their dining rooms. Some want just a single chair for a porch, deck or corner in a living room.

When he gets tired of looking at chairs, Dillon takes his grandfather's tools -- some of which were used by a great-grandfather, also a woodworker -- and tackles the 30-foot sailboat just beginning to take shape beneath a great, spreading blue tarp in his yard.

"I know the chairs now," he said. "I probably could build them blindfolded. This will be more of a challenge."

He built a 21-footer earlier and keeps it on Leech Lake. The bigger boat, 8 1/2 feet wide, he means to launch in Duluth and sail through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

"People find out I'm from New England and say, 'Oh, that's how you know all this,' " Dillon said, smiling. "Well, no, I didn't know any of this until I came out here."

-- Chuck Haga is at crhaga@startribune.com.