bleedinblue Posted March 17, 2019 Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 We've lamented the mediocre quality of our dining set for a while now. It's the typical mid-range stuff from one of the large furniture stores. During Christmas, my FIL was getting up from one of the chairs and there must have been a void under the veneer because his finger went right through it. Odd, and it displays the quality of the chairs. We don't dislike the design of the chairs, but naturally I'd prefer solid wood. This gave me the idea of disassembling one of the existing chairs and using the parts as templates and for exact dimensions. I would use better joinery, likely relying heavily on the Domino, and perhaps do some power carving on the seats. Before having this idea I wasn't exactly excited about building dining chairs...it seems like a slog of a project, but taking the guesswork out of the design and even having pre-made templates for routing should make it better. Has anyone done such a thing? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted March 17, 2019 Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 So the seat was laminated with hollow portions? Who would have thought. I would think if you can get it apart without harming it you would be in good shape. I look forward to following along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted March 17, 2019 Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 Honestly it looks like you would able to reverse engineering that pretty easily. I'm with you on not loving the idea of doing multiple chairs, but it's in my future also. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post RichardA Posted March 17, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 For dining, I cheated. 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted March 17, 2019 Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 Frank, When I built my dining table, I was headed down this road. We found a chair that we liked the design of but it was painted, which we didn't like. It was at a store that sold to restaurants so you were able to buy a single chair. I had taken it apart and was figuring out how much wood I would need when my wife bailed me out by finding some chairs that she really liked that were solid wood and I designed the table around them and was even lucky enough to find out how they finished them so it was easy to match the table. I wasn't really looking forward to making 6 of the same thing but having taken the chair apart, using the pieces for templetes was going to make the job easier. You just have to remember that if you have to cut a part out to get it a part, add enough to the length of your rough cuts to allow for your joinery that you cut away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bleedinblue Posted March 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 4 hours ago, pkinneb said: So the seat was laminated with hollow portions? Who would have thought. I would think if you can get it apart without harming it you would be in good shape. I look forward to following along. My best guess is they veneered over ply or some other substrate, and the substrate had a flaw with a hollow area. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, just a result of sub-par materials. That's just a guess though. 2 hours ago, Chet said: Frank, When I built my dining table, I was headed down this road. We found a chair that we liked the design of but it was painted, which we didn't like. It was at a store that sold to restaurants so you were able to buy a single chair. I had taken it apart and was figuring out how much wood I would need when my wife bailed me out by finding some chairs that she really liked that were solid wood and I designed the table around them and was even lucky enough to find out how they finished them so it was easy to match the table. I wasn't really looking forward to making 6 of the same thing but having taken the chair apart, using the pieces for templetes was going to make the job easier. You just have to remember that if you have to cut a part out to get it a part, add enough to the length of your rough cuts to allow for your joinery that you cut away. The prospect of building dining chairs has always turned me off, but I'm getting on board more and more. I think this could work. It's going to mean setting up a system for production type work, I'm betting the boss is going to order eight chairs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted March 17, 2019 Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 I've chatted with Bmac a bit about ding chairs and will be making a set for the table i made recently. It just depends on what you want i guess. I have a specific design in mind and there is something similar that exists but it's like $500 a chair and i still think my idea is better. Even if your chairs take 20 BF per chair which they won't and you get cherry for $5 a BF that's still a good amount of savings per chair. Batching them out is the easy part. I wanted to see how long it took me to make a basic chair and once you get stuff set up i could batch out 1 chair ever 4 hours or so (except for finishing) pretty easily. If you can get an hour or 2 a night that's only a months work. If you save $300 per chair that's $1,800 saved in a month or so. That's a pretty good chunk of change. Batching all 6 chairs at once will make that faster. Making the 2 Morris chairs i don't think took me any longer than just making 1. The dining chair guild project covers some of this stuff in good detail. Not sure if you have it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bleedinblue Posted March 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 Na, I don't have the guild dining chair project. I suppose if I dive into this it'll be a good idea to get it, even if I don't follow his design. I'm really not enthused about designing furniture myself...that's not the fun part to me. I'm less enthused about designing chairs. To add to that...short of Maloof (or Maloof inspired) chairs, nothing I've really seen has blown me away. I'm pretty well convinced that a simple design, made of quality materials and proper joinery, will be the ticket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted March 17, 2019 Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 That's the best part of the dining chair build he shows you how to design your own chair and then gives you the measurements for the one he builds which is very similar to you one you pictured. He then talks about batching and the pains associated with making 6 of something. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Bmac Posted March 17, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 I find chairs to be the most satisfying of builds. They are addicting also, at least for me they were. And Chestnut was right, if you are batching stuff it will go a lot quicker. One thing with chairs, they are stressed and racked more than all the other stuff we build. When was the last time someone sat on something you built, there leaned back in it, or constantly drug it back and forth on the floor. Most production chairs do have inferior joinery, making a chair with good joinery means you are creating something a lot of people can't afford to buy. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gee-dub Posted March 17, 2019 Report Share Posted March 17, 2019 For building consistent duplicates a read through Kevin Rodel's A&C chair build article in FWW can shed some light. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 Bmac, did you do a journal On a low back or rocker? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bmac Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 45 minutes ago, K Cooper said: Bmac, did you do a journal On a low back or rocker? No Coop. I was lurking here when I made my lowbacks and first Rocker, hadn't jumped in yet. My first journal was on Scott Morrison's Tea Party Chair. Here's a link to that journal, it was first time posting here; Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 Thanks bud. I’m whacking up lumber now for Brock’s take on the lowback and bought Marc’s sculptured rocker guild build and thought one more visual wouldn’t hurt. Sorry for the sidetrack Blue! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 I'm looking forward to the chair challenge, if I ever get past the backlog of requests already in my queue. Being slow hasn't discouraged enough folks from asking ..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chip Sawdust Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 46 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said: I'm looking forward to the chair challenge, if I ever get past the backlog of requests already in my queue. Being slow hasn't discouraged enough folks from asking ..... Today my wife reminded me that making our G&G bed frame took over a year *shrug* but she still asks for more stuff I’ll be interested to kibbitz on this project as well, so let’s get some sawdust flying! Haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gee-dub Posted March 18, 2019 Report Share Posted March 18, 2019 12 hours ago, Chip Sawdust said: Today my wife reminded me that making our G&G bed frame took over a year *shrug* I have learned to read between the lines. Allow me to translate; what she was really saying is that she is "so pleased that you were rewarded for all your hard work with such a long run of enjoyable activity in the shop" Since I have a day-job, folks wait 6 months or more for a dresser. A year for something for my own home sounds about right 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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