ronnie Posted December 3, 2010 Report Share Posted December 3, 2010 Well I finally finished the chairs. Man was it a lot of work.. I wanted to thank every one who gave me some tips on this project. As far as giving me some tips on the fastest way to do the mortise and tinion work.. I currently do not have any pic's of the chairs but hopfully I will get some soon, and share them with every one. Building chairs will definitly test your skills, and push you to your limits. How many people agrees with this.?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic Posted December 3, 2010 Report Share Posted December 3, 2010 I haven't tried yet, but I would tend to agree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harmsdph Posted December 3, 2010 Report Share Posted December 3, 2010 i also have not built any chairs yet but a few are on my project list ... if you hear loud curse words coming from Texas its me starting on them hehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronnie Posted December 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2010 If you build one chair that's no problem. If you build two chairs still no problem. But build four chairs and you got yourself some work there.. Which I don't want to sound like I am gripping because I love wood work and I need the business. If you know what I mean... I went to deliver them and the man had his wife with him, when she saw them she got real happy. She liked them so much that when they got ready to leave she gave me a $10.00 tip.. cool huh... That made me feel good. especially when you've work so hard on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Bennett Posted December 3, 2010 Report Share Posted December 3, 2010 Never underestimate chair making. Like you say making a few is hard work. Usually it's best if you can jig things it becomes easier. The real problem with chair making is getting client's to understand the complexity and time involved in one offs or a small batch. As an example I recently made a complete dining room suite for a client. Ten feet table, three Buffets, a Glazed three door display cabinet on top of a buffet and a solid three door top on a buffet All in Solid Oak. However, they did not like the idea of paying 340€ per chair for some very complicated moulded and laminated leather upholstered chairs that I designed specifically to go with the rest of the suite. In the end they purchased ten of the most uncomfortable and blatantly ugly Eastern block (can we still say that?) Oak ones. for 90€ each. They admit to hating them but at that price they choose to live with them? What can one say? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronnie Posted December 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2010 Never underestimate chair making. Like you say making a few is hard work. Usually it's best if you can jig things it becomes easier. The real problem with chair making is getting client's to understand the complexity and time involved in one offs or a small batch. As an example I recently made a complete dining room suite for a client. Ten feet table, three Buffets, a Glazed three door display cabinet on top of a buffet and a solid three door top on a buffet All in Solid Oak. However, they did not like the idea of paying 340€ per chair for some very complicated moulded and laminated leather upholstered chairs that I designed specifically to go with the rest of the suite. In the end they purchased ten of the most uncomfortable and blatantly ugly Eastern block (can we still say that?) Oak ones. for 90€ each. They admit to hating them but at that price they choose to live with them? What can one say? I totally understand what you are saying. The chairs I built were built out of southern yellow pine and stained with red mahogany from minwax with a quick clear coat/clear gloss. I can build chairs at a pretty reasonable cost if there built out of pine and stained. But when you start building things out of red oak/white oak then you are getting into some money.. I don't know,I guess people think oak is cheap or something. For a 1x6x8 at your local lumber/building material store it would be around $24-$25.00. And that's just for one board. And then you have to add up the time it takes to build the chairs.. All the mortise and tinion work that is to be done. And every thing has to be precise or you will have a whole bunch of parts that fit together but not flush and clean. If you know what I mean. Most of the work is involved in making your marks where the mortises are to be done. Just on one back leg I had to do about 5 mortises. I had to draw them out and make sure all of them where correct. Just one bad measurement can throw the whole thing off. It would probably be cheaper for them to go down and buy some chairs at a cheap furniture place. They wont hold up as well and like I said they would be cheap. For one whole chair there is probably about 16 mortises and that's not including all of the tinions. So I completely understand................ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronnie Posted December 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2010 Wood servent: Oh and I thought that building 4 chairs is a lot of work. That aint nothing compared to building a whole dinning room set like youve built. I dont know how I would tacle a job like that with out get strung out.. That definitly is a lot of work.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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