Thread: Building Wegner's "The Chair" .

Great post Derek!!!

You have adopted a Woodwouldian approach informing us about this piece.

Am watching with interest.

I'll just pull up a chair and watch also.
Regards
John

I've been eagerly awaiting this build to start! And congrats on finding that elusive 'study' chair you've been searching for....

Yes, interesting.


SB

Templates. Doesn't sound particular exciting, but time consuming and necessary.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furnitu...Templates.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for posting this, Derek. We will be with you on this very interesting journey. Love the warts and all approach. It is our mistakes that we learn most from. Keep up the good work

Go for it, Derek.

The Wegner chair looks simpler than this: Chairs walnut dng red.jpg

But of course, looks are deceiving, & I have been dead wrong more than once! I was emboldened to try making the arm chair to match the side chairs after reading an article on making Chippendale chairs in FWW, way, way back. The trick is to make sure the critical laying out of joints, cutting of tenons & digging out of mortises is done as much as possible with the wood in the square, or at least with as much as possible of the original squareness as you can retain to that point. I also believe firmly that human hands can do anything machines can (not necessarily mine, but someone's ) - after all, as you point out, Hans would have made a maquette, no? Miniatures seem more challenging than the real thing, to me.

There is no question having an example in front of you is a huge help, though at first, it can make the job look even more intimidating, I think. I made this wing chair fairly early in my chair-making career, while I was still too ignorant to know what I was getting into. Wing chair carcase red.jpg


I had a set of (very basic) drawings of a wing chair, which I used for general dimensions, but it was made to match a picture of a chair in the MMA. I also had had several old B&W photos of the guts of old wing chairs taken during renovation/repair to help me see what was under the fabric & stuffing. Sometimes ignorance is a help as much as a hindrance......

But once you get into it, I think you'll soon get in the swing. The second & subsequent models will be a doddle.
Cheers,

Hi Ian

As I mentioned early on, I have not built a chair before - not because I find them intimidating, but because I was not interested enough at the time and there were other priorities to deal with. I say this in all naivety - since I lack the experience - but the joinery for most chairs does not look particularly difficult when the connecting parts are 2-dimensional. That is, the parts angle but the connecting surfaces are flat. What makes for the difficulty in Chippendale is the carving. By-and-large the sections are fairly straight (or look it to me). The rear, for example, are built up from several parts.

A far greater challenge would be to built a Maloof-style rocker or chair. This is carving in 3-dimension for a good bit, plus laminating to get other curves. Even so, the curved parts here are not in the same category of The Chair in that the latter requires enormously thick stock and the ability to see the 3-dimension within this. It is very deceiving when one looks at the finished chair. One cannot imagine how thick the stock started out at. Of course this may be said about my earlier comment about the Chippendale being build from largely flat sections - it is difficult to understand these factors unless you are there. I hope to demonstrate this.

I will probably need to look for more timber - find something sympathetic to the timber I have. The thickness needed surprised me. I thought I had it covered and right now I am taking from Peter to pay Paul.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, all true, I think - Chippendale was a cunning cove, and there are certainly flat areas for much of the joinery, that at first blush looked curved and devilishly difficult. There are on the chairs I copied, at least, & I didn't realise it until I started tracing templates from the side chairs. And I think you are right in comparing the Wegner chair with a Maloof, rather than a Chippendale - many similarities, alright. However, I dimly remember seeing an article in an early FWW where Maloof describes how he made his signature rockers, and as I recall, he did the layout & joint-making on the parts 'in the square'. Some of the components were then partially or fully shaped before assembly, and the final shaping was done after assembly. I reckon that methodology could be applied advantageously on the Wegner. At least, if I were tackling it, that's how I'd approach the job (though not sure I would be brave enough to use Jarrah, & especially on my very first complex chair build ).

Being naïve is a distinct advantage, on this job, I reckon - you will probably find some bits of the build more difficult than you anticipated. OTH, much of it will probably turn out less difficult than you are fearing. I find that happens to me often...

Cheers,

So let m see if i can get my head around this... (coz really after reading it all, I can't for the life of me).

1. You like some danish blokes design of chair. - check.

2. You couldn't find any way to copy it from photos and measurements off the net. - check.

3. You bought a mass produced copy of the chair off evil bay so you'd have a physical copy chair to copy. - check.

4. You've bought the timber to make 1 copy chair of the copy chair. - check.

This is what I don't "get".

A) It seems like an awful lot of trouble... to go too - to make a single chair which admittedly you like - but which you now have one of, because you bought a copy cheap off evil bay.

B) Likey you will have to jig up to dulicate the pieces to make 1 more chair.

C) If you already have a chair you like - why do you want to make one more?

D) If you have to jig up to make it anyway & you like the chair so much....

Would it not make more sense to make a whole suite of them, say 6 or 8 or 10.... to make all this effort and expense worth while?

Maybe then you could find a table to build to match....

Then you'd have a dining suite - not 2 copy chairs - one of which you made & the other you bought?.

I am just missing something obvious I guess.

The whole process and the drive behind it escapes me...

If ya gunna make the fricken thing - make a batch of them, and make the effort worthwhile.

Sorry - subtlety 101 was a course I musta skipped at political correctness school...

I'm going to guess firstly Derek's after the challenge of the joinery and making it by hand.
Secondly I'm supposing he doesn't need 6 or 8.
Cheers,
Paul
(Who has enough trouble just making a gate)

Originally Posted by pmcgee

I'm going to guess firstly Derek's after the challenge of the joinery and making it by hand.
Secondly I'm supposing he doesn't need 6 or 8. ...

Thank you Paul

Regards from Perth

Derek

Next chapter: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furnitu...tretchers.html

A question for all: how would you go about coping the tenon shoulders?



Regards from Perth

Derek

It would depend what machines and tools were available to me.

If it were ME doing it I'd be making 6, 8, or 10 of them, so a lot of this hand tools stuff would be out the window for a start.

I'd have sanded those inner curves on the end of the door sander belt drum and the outer ones of the top of the belt.

When I turned the legs, I'd leave them square where those stretchers tenon in.

Id use the chisel morticer to go in square just deep enough - to create a mortice to take the whole end of the spreader at say 13mm.

Then using say a 10mm chisel drill in the morticer to create the actual tenon mortice hole.

I'd then turn the square section left on all the legs down to round to match the rest of the leg.

The idea being that the square end of the stretchers are located sited deep enough inside the square section of wood - that when that section is then re - situated into the lathe and the square section turned down to round - that the 13mm wide (or 18mm wide depending on width of your stretchers) that the housed out section is deeper that the finished turned diameter of the leg.

When you put it together the stretchers tenon end would be recessed into the rectangular mortice hole left in the round turned leg and yet the square faces will cramp up / glue up to a nice flat face inside the leg for extra surface area / strength - and the round turned section on the leg would create the impression (look) that the tenoned ends of the stretchers were in fact coped to match the curvature of the leg when it was actually all done square and off the machine = no hand work and the ability to make a suite of chairs, and not just one, for probably the similar investment of time.

For mechanical strength in the joint - I'd be tempted to drill and use either a screw thru the leg and tenon as a mechanical pin to prevent the joint ever separating , but I'd pellet it and cover the head of the screw with a piece of the same timber from the leg cut from the waste on the end of the actual leg so it matches and I'd go to the effort to match grain direction as best I could. If done from the inside face of the leg it likely would never be seen. Someone less fussy might use a timber dowel spun from the same wood as your mechanical pin thru the tenon - but you would always see the end grain of the dowel unless you used a short one and drive it deeper and pelleted over the top of the dowel as for the screw.

Others mileage will vary no doubt.

That's probably not how the original designed did it - but he might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed either.

Ohh - and as for the waste of timber that those backs are in one piece.... why can't they be laminated up?

With the right cutting files - those curved backs could be laser cut from say 3 mm sheets of solid timber on a CNC laser flat bed and glued/cramped back together and all the parts nested into the 3mm veneers of solid wood in such a way they key together at the ends the way jig saw puzzles pieces fit together...

Again - the repeatability would mean assembling 10 chairs would take less time that 1 cut by hand from a single piece, and look much the same - probably be stronger and more functional into the bargain.

At the time the chair was designed that machinery and computer repeatability wasn't available to the designer / maker BUT - would he have used it if it was for the material utilization savings time savings etc etc

I reckon if he was such a forward thinker and innovator he probably would - which begs the question - why wouldn't you? (because that part of it could be subbed out to a contractor with the machine).. the cloud files to produce the parts could be produced with a 3d scanner off the original back on the copy chair you bought, easy peasy.

You want a chair? Or do you want to make it the hardest slowest way possible for the experience and satisfaction of doing it?

Heck that chair could likely be 3d scanned and 3d printed in aluminium alloy in one piece if you were of a mind too and cost wasn't an issue.

What would the designer of 40 years ago, have done in the same situation now - in the 3rd millennium?

Would he use methods and technology that made his creation stronger, more profitable, less wasteful of timber, less labor intensive etc etc?

Is he even still alive?

Would you boil down horses hooves to make the glue to be true to the period or will you use some modern strong inert epoxy resin that didn't exist when these chairs were designed and built?

Is that being true to the spirit of the original designer and manufacturer?

If a more modern glue can be used - why would any other more modern technique or equipment or materials be out of place?

Will you be sourcing old Sydney Cook slotted head steel wood screws - for this project to keep within period - or will some chip board Phillips/Posi head screws from Bunnings be doing the task?

Its hard to give you the definitive answer you seek unless one gets inside your head as to the whole outline of the project and your motivations and design build boundary's.

If your chairs a copy how do you know if the originals chairs stretchers had coved ends at the tenons?

Was it done that way because the guy copying the original design had some machine that allowed him to do it that way easiest/quickest with what tools he had to hand? (Eg a spindle moulder dado / tenoning cutter, with the matching coved blades?).

Lots of unknowns in this one... and for most furniture makers it would probably come down to using what you have and time tested methods that have worked for you in the past - because at the end of the day time is money - including in chair manufacture - not many, made them all one at a time and by hand with only hand tools....

The shakers probably still do.

Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done.

Some guys would take a tree stump, mallet and carving chisel and make that chair all out of one solid piece all by hand and fair play to them.

There are no right or wrongs - it's all up to the maker - how would YOU like to do it with what tools and machines you have available to you?

Any 2 makers would likely make it different and more than 1 way would probably work.

Some makers (like me making a suite of 6, 8, or 10 chairs) might sub the turning of the legs to someone with a copy lathe for e.g. and the uniformity time saving etc would probably be justified.

But if your into hand making one offs...all of those suggestions probably horrify you - And I can understand that.

For ME (personally) I don't see the whole point of making a hand made one off chair - that's not an original design of your own, but invest lots of time into hand making a copy of a knockoff copy...

But that's just me - I come from a commercial background of 20 years trying to make production furniture for a living.

A shaker would probably knock me on the head with his mallet.

Takes all sorts I guess.

It'll be interesting to see what you eventually end up deciding to do, square and house it into the leg or trying to cope the ends to match the presumably individually hand turned legs?

I can't see you getting repeatability / accuracy for neat fit /tight gap free joints that way - but I could be wrong. The right guy with a micrometer and 10 years to spare might well do it.

My 11pence halfpenny. (Coz many will tell you I am not quite the full shilling at times)

Cheers