On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 13:05:03 +0000, Timothy Murphy
wrote:

There is a wooden "splat" (not sure if that is the right word) at the back,
which looks like oak to me.

That's where you'd find a splat. Of couse without a picture I can't tell
if your chair has a splat, or if it just has spindles - a splat is a
widened flat spindle that's in a position for you to lean back on it,
it's not a strut that's in a separate alignment.

Splats may well have been oak, if that was to hand. Probably still more
common as ash or beech though. It's (possibly) an indication that a
"Windsor" with an oak splat was made by a generalised furniture maker or
joiner who had the timber on hand, not a chairmaking specialist.
Chairmaking historically was a high-volume batch trade. Very few people
assembled chairs, most of them just turned out spindles or whatever and
passed the parts along to the next chap. They did tend to be very good
and very quick at making one type of thing, but they did everything in a
consistent manner - they would use the same timber for all parts that
they made, simply because they hada lot of it and it's all that they
had.

It's not easy to distinguish old timber species apart. By far the
easiest way is to hold up samples of known timbers next to it. If you're
used to working with oak, then you'll recognise oak. If you're not, then
a verbal description can't always indicate whether it's oak, ash, beech,
elm or even chestnut. Look for the rays - in beech these make the
distinctive tiny specks in flatsawn wood, in oak they make the radial
rays you can see in quartered faces or as straight lines in end grain.
In ash you won't see them.


but what would this bent strut be made of?

Can't tell. Try posting a picture. It could equally well be oak, ash or
beech, and it doesn't really much matter. A reproduction or repair has
to be "appropriate", not a perfect substitute.


I have the bits of the broken semicircular strut,
and thought as a first step I'd try gluing them together,

If it's a strut, it probably has some force on it. It's probably also
too small to take a dowel without splitting out instead. Modern glues
might hold it, but I'd probably look at making a replacement.

I wouldn't look too hard for a cabinetmaker. They're hard to find and
most of them are millwork shops doing high-end office fitting these
days. As there are a good many specialised chairmakers and even Windsor
chairmakers around, I'd look for one of them. I was at Westonbirt for
the Festival of Wood a month or two back and the place was crawling with
them!

(This is slightly more awkward than might appear,
as the strut is fatter in the middle
than at the ends where it is slotted into the two front legs.)

That sort of hand-shaped swelling is quite common in chairs, rare in
anything else. That's one reason why you want a chair maker, not a case
maker. Could it have been turned, _then_ steam-bent ?

"Cheshire born and Cheshire bred,
Thick in arm and thick in head".
I don't know if that is a general remark about Cheshire folk?

I think I've heard it applied as a description to most counties in
England.