Thread: Dining chair

Not many chairs, in the big stuff section... maybe you need to build bigger chairs!

Chair looks good though. nice work. the baby blue isn't to my like though... maybe royal or navy blue...

Well done.

Fabulous work Fencepost2. You've seen my dining table - it's been finished two years and I still haven't worked up the courage to do the chairs!

When I do get to them I hope they turn out half as well as this one.

And yes, the economics of the whole caper sound very familiar to me

Great chair Fencepost2.
Did you do the upholstery?

I renovated some dining chairs my wife brought over from Brazil. It was an interesting experience and I learnt much.

Nice chair, $1000 to make 1 chair sounds about right, the more you make at once the cheaper they become(in labour).

Nice work

BTW looks nothing like a fencepost

Very nice fencepost.

I expect that your friend's $100 chair won't be around for as long as the one you have made. Some people seem to delight in making these type of comments, but usually when you look at what they bought, it isn't worth the $100 they paid. Crap wood, crap design, crap fit and crap finish.

Regards,

James

Originally Posted by yjnb

usually when you look at what they bought, it isn't worth the $100 they paid. Crap wood, crap design, crap fit and crap finish.

This rings true. So the question is "Does it cost $1000 to buy a chair of this quality?"

Even if you are comparing apples to apples you are hard pressed to make the numbers work. As a hobbyist making 'one-offs' you're always going to be behind when it comes to items mass produced with cheap foreign labour (and 'cheap' shouldn't be equated with 'unskilled'). And Fencepost2's numbers are based on $20/hr. That seems pretty conservative.

But it's largely irrelevant. For me the satisfaction of having 'done it yourself' trumps any economic argument. I haven't looked but I bet this topic has been beaten to death on this forum before?

Thanks for all the comments on my chair. The baby blue colour of the upholstry is chosen to match some other pieces that we have - I agree it might look nicer with a darker blue. I am making a set of 6 and the joinery for the other 5 of this design is done awaiting sanding and assembling. One thing that is costing me time is my awareness that I shall probably be looking at these chairs for the rest of my days and so I am using time fiddling with things that wouldn't be considered if it were a commercial operation. One of my biggest learnings is that I have a tendency to over engineer. This my 3rd model chair is quite noticeably lighter in weight than versions 2 and 3, but I still have room to make things look more elegant with smaller dimensioned pieces, joints, and thicknesses of timber. It would be really nice to make structures that you could lift on a finger but be strong enough for rough daily use. For me a big design issue is the joint between the back leg and the seat part that has to withstand big racking forces. I have tenons 75 x 28 and 12mm thick. Certainly better than a couple of dowels, but I wonder how much I dare reduce them.