Designing a dining carver chair

[Derek Cohen]

We need two new dining room chairs, carvers to go with a new dining table (build after this one). The inspiration for the carver chairs was this photo ...




I have since concluded that an elliptical or oval leg profile (see earlier thread - Link) is not practical. This is a shape would be constructed with CNC machinery in the absence of special shaper/router bits. The shape was my wife's choice, not mine - I prefer rounded, tapered legs, ala the Wegner The Chair style. So back to the drawing board.



For interest, I had drawn up and mocked out the chair. I still like the overall design, but the top section needs some more tweeking. It is too high to rest arms on and fit under the table top ...







The design of the chair needs to compliment the bentwood chairs here, which are original early 1900s. The table is to be replaced with a longer, wider one.











This table is over 200 years old, and has great sentimental value. It is built of Yellow Wood (top) and Stinkwood (legs). We bought this after getting married. Now, 42 years later, Lynndy wants a larger table. The plan is a top in Rock Maple and round, parallel legs in Jarrah. Mid Century modern, and the aim is to blend two modern Mid Century carvers with the bentwood chairs. Consequently, a lighter look for the carvers is needed.



Regards from Perth



Derek

[Derek Cohen]

Here is the re-design.

The legs have been made thinner, with 25mm top and bottom, and 32mm around the seat area. The 35mm thick seat will be attached with mortice-and-tenons (not sure yet whether integral or loose tenons). These will be 25x10mm.

The curve has been retained in the legs ... since this is a desired feature to soften the look and also link with the bentwood chairs. The legs will now be round and not oval. The complication, in shaping, is that there is a taper and a curve.

The height of the top section has been reduced significantly. It is possible to see the original design below the new design ...



All-in-all much slimmed down.

Then there are finer details being worked out, such as the curve at the rear of the backrest and seat to link with the roundness of the bentwood chairs. The transition from the legs to the arm rest is borrowed from Hans Wegner ...



The plan shape for the arm- and back rest will come later.

Thoughts?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Charles Edward]

$179 bucks:

https://www.roveconcepts.com/wishbon...QcQAvD_BwE&aid[12]=173&aid[35]=445

$339 bucks:

https://www.roveconcepts.com/round-chair

These chairs are a masterpiece of industrial design as they were meant to be -- high style, but could be (and are being) produced in volume and thus made affordable. Designing the work flow and shop floor processes to produce dozens of these a day is the most remarkable thing about them, beyond the original design.

Logic is being turned a bit on its head when the hand-made article is being made to match the original, machine-made one, and one designed for machine manufacturing in the first place.

I'd love to see a virtuoso jig maker take a crack at these and knock out two dozen a week in his or her garage shop. Now THAT would be quite the accomplishment.

[Derek Cohen]

Charlie, you're a class act.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Charles Edward]

Charlie, you're a class act.

Regards from Perth

Derek

My insatiable interest in furniture of all kinds has always been my own undoing.

Nothing sadder than the murder of a beautiful theory at the hands of brutal facts.

[Derek Cohen]

Charlie, what is sadder is how successfully you manage to troll forums, and disrupt threads, adding little other than your smarminess.

Well done.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Charles Edward]

At some point, watching somebody count on others' stupidity is just too much to bear.

You'll no doubt hack-and-wheeze your way to a couple of chairs using five times the amount of wood it should have taken, and fifteen times the time.

[Derek Cohen]

At some point, watching somebody count on others' stupidity is just too much to bear.

It's called narcissism, Charlie.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Charles Edward]

It's called narcissism, Charlie.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Ha! Pot, meet black kettle.

At least I haven't regressed to spending $2,000 on wood (and God only knows how much time) to reproduce a couple of $250 chairs, and then call it 'craftsmanship.' And then take internet bows for the next three months after having done so.

Please, brother. Narcissism oozes out of your pores.

Let me hazard a guess. This 'build' will be posted on every woodworking forum of any repute on the internet (already is I think). And you'll spend a not insignificant amount of time monitoring and responding to comments on all of them. And if you don't get the love you think the project deserves, you'll mourn the impending death of internet woodworking forums. All of this mostly for the purpose of being feted when the two-chair build is finally done months from now, with some forest in Australia on the brink of catastrophic ecosystem collapse.

And I'm the narcissist.

[Edward Weber]

I can't tell if you guys are friends, enimies or something in between.
I do however have to agree with Charles on this

Logic is being turned a bit on its head when the hand-made article is being made to match the original, machine-made one, and one designed for machine manufacturing in the first place.

If you want to make chairs, then by all means go for it but for me, there's always a measure of practicality.
Could I make it, sure. Should I make it, probably not.
Time/money is sometimes better spent elsewhere.
Chairs can be tricky to get right. It's been said, I don't know by whom, "Build a chair and you get a reputation for about a decade, longer if it's any good".
JMHO

[Charles Edward]

Beyond the artistic/design accomplishment, the skill was and is in setting up for high production. These chairs can be jigged for the router and shaper -- the jigs an engineering and 3-D masterpiece all their own. The chairs are almost an afterthought.

[Derek Cohen]

I can't tell if you guys are friends, enimies or something in between.
I do however have to agree with Charles on this



If you want to make chairs, then by all means go for it but for me, there's always a measure of practicality.
Could I make it, sure. Should I make it, probably not.
Time/money is sometimes better spent elsewhere.
Chairs can be tricky to get right. It's been said, I don't know by whom, "Build a chair and you get a reputation for about a decade, longer if it's any good".
JMHO

Edward, Charlie and I have a love-hate relationship. It depends on the mood he is in, whether he is back on the sauce, or if he just wakes up grumpy and is feeling hormonal owing to the sex-change meds not kicking in. We have known each other about 20 years on the forums - he has been around with a multitude of names, as he likes to mess with people. Like Warren, Charlie offers critique and nothing more. But he does have some good insights, even though they likely are the result of snorting something.

His point about cost of equipment versus purchase of furniture is spurious. First of all, if you want to purchase cheaply made copies of Wegner (the pieces he linked to), then go ahead. The differences are obvious, and you take the sizing and wood choices that are given. Secondly, we are woodworkers, and capable of building anything, and doing so better than offered. I have furnished 90% of my home and working on my son's now. Building for oneself is worth more than the wood costs. Thirdly, I have been doing this for quite a number of decades, am a hobbiest, and the machines and tools I have purchased over the years reflect the pleasure I get from using them. I spent far more (much more!) on windsurfing equipment back when I raced on the National circuit. By now, all the furniture I have built would have cost several times the layout for the machines and tools I own.

Charlie only makes these points to pull your chain, which is why I am responding to you (since you raised them) and not he.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Andrew Hughes]

Derek has two things going for him.
He’s both a good woodworker and word-worker. Some are one or the other maybe neither
Charlie remains me if that guy David W. we kicked out.

[Mike Allen1010]

As my Master Chief in the Navy used to say when guys would start bar fights- “take it outside, I’m here to have a good time “. Not sure what the internet equivalent of that is but if we have to go outside, I’m with Derek.

Gentlemen, can’t we get along here? I for one, want to see Derek’s chair build. Remember, this is just woodworking- there is literally nothing at stake here!

Happy New Year to All!

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

I think that in a woodworking forum, arguing that you can buy it for cheaper is by default, missing the point...
I am [sigh] still not done building my bench - my family jokes it will be done on time for my son's 18th (he is 1 years old).
I am sure if I count my hourly, have saved money paying someone else to make it (would probably have finer joinery too).
still, I regret nothing!