Duplicating Chairs

We got a commission last fall to add two new chairs to a set of eight we made in 1991 ... I remembered the chairs well. We made the originals from 3 pictures (front, side, and back views) from a museum in Connecticutt. I never saw the originals, we had no measurements and I remember them being difficult to reproduce. In fact, I remember them as the hardest chairs I ever built. I thought it was because I made them from a picture .... Hah ! They were just hard chairs .... Fortunately we had some patterns that we kept; no notes, no drawings, but we did have a chair from the original set to copy. What we should have done, at that point, was what I always remember as an important part of a new chair design, Make some full size drawings. At the minimum, a seat plan view showing the side angles, a side view, and a head on elevation. Accurate drawings like these take time, and since I had the chair to copy, I skipped this step. Several times, I wished I hadn't .. Anyway, I'm glad they're done ... The two new ones are in the photo above and two from the original set have moved to Boston. You would think duplicating something exactly would be easy, particularly if you built the originals and you have one on hand to copy. Well, one of us forgot what he learned about building them in 1991 and the other one who was working on them was only 7 in 1991 so he didn't remember much about them either. We got through them and it was still a challenge but a great experience all over again. How'd I do that? What (exactly) is that angle? And how (exactly) exactly do you match a new finish to a 17 year old patina on a set of cherry chairs? Ain't easy .... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

First you've got to get Will to turn the front legs and carve the little 'Spanish' feet ... he liked that..

Then you've got to shape, mortise and tenon and knock together the back legs and top rail and center splat .. shape all that stuff and glue it all up ...

Connect the dots ...

Find someone to do the rush seats ... Bob Post from Schenectady was great ... 518-357-2988 He also does caning ...

Back from Bob now ... The natural rush seats are greener now (as were the originals when they were first done) but eventually will fade to the tan color you see on the original chair on the left. The new chair seats have a slightly different look, as the person who did the originals is no longer working and each rusher has a slightly different way of working with the material. And ... now we're done ... Next !

another custom cherry dining room

we shipped out another cherry dining room wednesday ... and got a nice email below from the clients after it arrived yesterday, and that always makes us feel good ...
click the photos to enlarge them ...
the project consisted of a 52 x 86 pedestal dining table with one 22" leaf, 8 of our contemporary transitional chairs, and a 7' tall corner cupboard. the full plan view is shown below ...
as usual, we got our wood from irion lumber and, though it was close, we were able to fit the whole table top on 4 boards from the same log.
we start the base construction with 3 layers of 3/4" plywood for strength and stability and veneer that with either shop made or store bought +/- 1/16th" veneer. in this case, since we were tight for lumber, we used 1/16th" cherry veneer from certainly wood . it was beautiful stuff.
the main base support is a 'truncated pyramid', or 'hopper' geometric construction that require slight adjustments to the miter angles. steel runners are from our friends at moin hardware.
bottom view showing the angled aprons and center stiffener. the clients requested 'room to cross their legs' without interference from the table aprons. this was actually a new design for us, but it gave the table top a nice light 'floaty' look.
after the halves were glued up and cut to shape, trevor routed the pockets for the inlays and we installed them in our usual fashion, using bent temporary brads to apply some side pressure to the inlay borders as the glue set.
he also made a set of patterns for the shop made burl veneer which he then cut on the cnc as thick blocks, which we later resawed into the matching patterns you can see in the photos below. the burl was from berkshire products in sheffield, mass.
cutting veneers from solid burl is always a challenge in that the burls themselves are full of bark inclusions, small voids and generally pretty rough grain ... we like to leave a little of that texture which imparts a distinctive 'not from the furniture store' feeling.
the final inlaid surfaces are handplaned level and scraped and sanded and the resulting subtle texture felt when you run your fingers across the grain is also one of our signature elements.
nice pattern in the single 22" leaf. the design trevor created allowed him to use the same block for the triangles in the table halves and the leaf ... pretty clever.
next, the chairs ... 8 of em ... how many pieces total? interesting thought, let's see ... 18 pieces per chair (the splats are veneered on quartered cherry) x 8 ... sounds like 144, plus the seat blanks.
we've changed from the original corner block design on the left (a total pain in the neck to fit and install) to a routed solid seat base glued up integral to the whole chair, which makes me feel confident on 'my lifetime' chair guarantee. if you're not sure what i mean by 'routed solid seat base', you can see a stack of the seats in this photo from a previous post.
tah dah ... nice fabric choice ...
the corner cupboard ... natural cherry with beaded, handplaned pine backboards, a single pane door ... pretty traditional construction design with a nice contemporary flair
in process ...
the backboards ... numbered and removed for finishing.
all for now ... get that shopping done ....

chair challenge

5/13 ... we delivered this challenging rosewood chair last weekend ... this project was a real wrestling match for everyone involved. the upholsterer had a long backlog and then, a long struggle with the edelman 'rattlesnake' leather ... i have to agree, it was an unusual material, and, for him, a real bear to work with. looks great though; sits great; glad it's done ... cool object ...
the challenge ... make a chair from a photo .... if you've never tried it, it's not easy ... we had a photo that the client took from a french website of a "Lady Vanity Chair by Christian Krass (Design of JE Ruhlmann) france, 1930, 'very elegant and slender vanity chair by Christian Krass after design of J.E. Ruhlmann' ". .. since my client didn't want to order the chair from france and also wanted it to match the other furniture we made for her dressing room a few years ago, she called on us to do the job ... we had no measurements or details but we went at it in the only way we know how ... make a full size mock up; sit in it; walk around it and make changes mentally before building the real thing ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
mock up on the left ... the real thing, (in morado), on the right ... in this photo, we have made a cardboard template for fitting the real back piece, which is actually a section of a cone and tough to fit. we glued it up on a curved form already on hand from a previous project ...
at this point, we realized that the back seat rail also had to curve out to match so we had to make a new one of those ... details, details ...
next we fitted the real backsplat (two wacky wood layers and two and 2 1/8" birch ply layers) and made up the bookmatched/slip matched veneered piece that would finish it off. next we glued that to the fitted backsplat and flushed it up ...
viola' ...
one thing i kick myself for not noticing was that the back legs of the original chair are vertical and parallell, and i did mine in my typical, 'turned out' fashion that gives the chair a little more style. but, it also makes the legs flare out at the top which made making the back piece removable for upholstering a real challenge ... i fooled around with it for a long time, moving the tapered connectors, filling bad screw holes etc, but i finally got it. it will take two people and a clamp to install the upholstered back splat, but hey, what are friends for?
you can see the connectors here ... photo of the matching splat hardware later ...
it's in the finishing process now .... it will be dark and shiny and luscious and will be upholstered in edelman 'rattle snake skin' leather (be sure to check out that link for some serious style) ... it should be a knockout ... can't wait ...