Thread: Building dining room carver chairs

Thank you Rusty for posting before me. I was trying to work out how to raise the same issues constructively but now you have done so quite elegantly.

Derek's efforts inadvertently probably partially answers that old perennial question as to why Sam Maloof did his chair leg/seat joints the way he did. Some are almost as light as Derek's design.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Rusty, I agree with you. More that you realise.

This is the designer/maker interface that really interests me, Derek. I will be watching with great interest to see how you solve this problem without creating several more. Life wasn't meant to be easy!

My own preferred method is to draw the components on a CAD program and then bring them together so I can examine them from every viewpoint and anticipate stress points. Then I move to maquettes in cheap timber - radiata or E nitens - and/or a prototype which is really a 100% scale maquette. I lack the confidence to start cutting presentation timber so early.

Sometimes it is an ill-wind that blows good. I am now rather pleased I am remaking the seats as I have found better info on the original chair, and details of the seat design. I have the legs right but not the seat.



In the mock up at the factory, the seat was screwed to the legs, but the final version used mortice-and-tenon. These joints are made very solid by a great deal of supporting mass around them. I plan to make the joints loose tenons for extra strength, but try and follow the original design in this regard. (At this stage it is a toss up whether I copy the arms or go with a design I think is more elegant).



Here is a video I found of the build:













The chairs are sold in Oz for $3600 each.



Regards from Perth



Derek

Interesting, Derek. There are at least four ways of attaching the seat in that video:

1. Through tenons,
2. Screws,
3. Under seat rails,
4. Cross rails.

I had trouble reconciling the alignment of the tenons on the seat with the mortices on the legs. One seemed vertical, the other sloped?

Graeme, in my first rendition of the seats, the front and rear tenons were both made at a slope of 10 degrees. I did fit the legs, and this angle appeared correct. That is what I shall stay with.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

[the tenons were] ... pared ...

Hi Derek

Can you tell me how wide your chisel is? and if possible who made it.

Hi Ian

That is one of the slicks I have in a set made for me by Kiyohisa about 20 years ago. This one is probably about 30mm wide.



Regards from Perth

Derek

Another video of the DC09 chair by the Scandinavian–Japanese duo Inoda + Sveje in 2011.



DC09 Chair designed by Inoda+Sveje on Vimeo



Regards from Perth



Derek