Captain's chair revisited

[Rocker]

Some years ago, I made a Captain's chair from a design given in Jeff Miller's book 'Chairmaking & Design'. The chair looked nice in American cherry (Photo 1) , but it was very uncomfortable to sit in because it is completely lacking in lumbar support. Last week, SWMBO's cheap office chair collapsed, so, rather than buy another (well, I am a Scottish-Australian), I decided to add some backslats to the Captain's chair. I used some nice red jarrah, which was a pretty good match for the cherry. The backslats are bent laminations - two 4 mm strips of jarrah glued together in the same former that I use for my rocker backslats.

I routed the backslat mortices in the back of the seat with a jig made from MDF, for use with a 19 mm guide bushing (Photo 2). The mortices to hold the top of the backslats were routed in a piece of jarrah curved to match the curve of the back rail, using the Rocker morticing jig. The end result is shown in Photo 3 - a bit of a botch, but it saved $200 for a new typist's chair.

Rocker

[jacko]

Very neat way to recover! Sure beats having to buy some chrome monstrosity.
Jacko

[AlexS]

IMHO, it looks better now, too.

[Dusty]

Good thinking.
It's now a great looking chair, whereas, the original design looked a bit like a pair of jocks with the bottom hanging out of them.

That's a hell of a shiny finish in the first pic!

[MajorPanic]

Neat & well executed, another to add to the Rocker Collection of fine furniture!! :cool:

[vsquizz]

I'm going to have to get into this botching.:D

Nice one Rocker, a much better look.


Cheers

[ryanarcher]

Dave
What a georgeous piece of furniture! I think it looks better now than if you hadn't messed up in the first place! You seem to keep finding excuses to show off your tallent! :)
-ryan

[Rocker]

Thanks guys for kind comments, now I just have to decide what to spend that $200 on :)

Dusty,

You're right - gloss polyurethane was not the ideal finish for the chair.

Rocker

[wayneo75]

nice looking chair, you should be proud.


but one thing, i still haven't been able to figure out what SWMBO's stands for, all i know is that it has something to do with the wife

[Slavo]

but one thing, i still haven't been able to figure out what SWMBO's stands for, all i know is that it has something to do with the wife

She Who Must Be Obeyed

[wayneo75]

i like it !


i always refer to her as "the management"

as I always say "i will have to check with management"

[barnsey]

Rocker,
Nice work . I could use 6-8 chairs for the dining table - want some practice :D

Seriously nice job.

Even CEO's and the board have to listen to the Financial officer. There aren't that many females in the business world in that position - that's why they do it at home and hence SWMBO. Shhh She's coming :eek:

[Rocker]

Have just got a reply from Jeff Miller, who has an article on M&T joinery in the current Fine Woodworking. I sent him a pic of his chair with backslats added and a copy of my morticing jig article, since the morticing jig he described in his article was a relatively primative one, although a good deal simpler to build than mine. He admits his original design for the Captain's chair is uncomfortable, but said he was keeping it simple for beginner chairmakers. But actually curved laminated backslats are easy to make once you have the former to clamp them in.

Rocker

[Rocker]

Barnsey,

I made my set of four dining chairs by copying the design shown in this photo from an article in a magazine called Home Furniture. The article did not contain plans or dimensions, but the design is quite easy to build once you have made a template for the leg parts and a couple of jigs for cutting the mortices and housing joints. Unlike most chairs, all the joints are square.

Rocker