Someone was giving away this chair, and I thought it could help me design and make my own version. The chair had a note taped to the bottom of the seat indicating that it could be from 1930.
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| Child's Sunday school chair |
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| Note on seat bottom |
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| Front view (center spindle is broken) |
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| Side view |
Many of the joints were loose and it took only a little persuasion to get the chair apart.
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| The undercarriage |
The legs are joined by a square (-ish) structure of stretchers, each about 11/16" diameter, with 5/8" tenons at the ends. The front stretcher bulges in the middle to about 7/8" diameter. The front and back stretchers are 5" to 5 1/2" down from the seat bottom and the side stretchers are about 2" lower than that.
The legs are 1 5/16" diameter in the joinery area, tapering at top to 3/4" tenons and at the bottom to about 1 1/16" feet. I measured the rake and splay angles of the front and back legs using a bevel gauge and protractor. The front legs have 2° rake and 4° splay, while back legs have 14° rake and 6° splay. These were measured with the back feet propped up about 3/8" to make the seat level with the floor.
The back is formed from one bent-wood piece and three spindles.
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| The back |
The arched piece is about 7/8" diameter, with 3/4" tenons at each end. These had been fitted and wedged into through holes in the seat.
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| A large wedge in the arched rail tenon |
At its maximum width, the arched back is 13 1/2" wide. The top of the arch is about 15" above the seat. Coming out of the seat, the arched piece angles back about 19°. But you can see from the side view picture that it does not stay at that angle - the upper section curves further back after about 6"-8" of the straight lower section.
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| Arched back of chair, shows the backwards curve |
The spindles fit into 1/2" mortises in the seat and 3/8" mortises in the arched piece. The diameter of the spindles is about 1/2", and they bulge to about 11/16" about 4 1/2" up from the lower tenons. The spindles angle back at 12-13° and the outer two also splayed to the sides about 3-4°.
The seat is about 1 1/16" thick, just under 13" wide and 12 1/4" front to back. Grain direction is front to back. The legs do not extend through the seat - the 3/4" diameter mortises on the underside are about 7/8" deep. The underside of the seat is about 11" off the floor at the front and about 1/4" to 3/8" lower at the back.
The seat had a clean break front to back that had been "repaired" with two metal plates and screws.
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| Seat bottom |
I drew the outline of the seat on paper and marked where the important features were.
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| Seat outline - both bottom (leg mortises) and top layouts shown (drawing not complete) |
As far as materials are concerned, I'm guessing on most of it. But I planed the surfaces of the seat where it had broken apart and it was a close-grained wood with a nice creamy light brown color. Maybe cherry?
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| Seat pieces planed together in vise |
I scraped some finish off a leg to see what it is made of. Judging from the color and the ray flecks, it appears to be beech.
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| Leg material |
The arched piece was of unknown wood. As far as I know, oak and ash have been used historically for bending - maybe hickory, too. I've never worked with ash or hickory, so I can't say for sure, but from what I've seen in pictures, this could be hickory.
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| Arched rail scraped to raw wood |
The stretchers and spindles had a color similar to the legs, but I didn't see the typical ray flecks of beech, so I don't know what they were made of.
I'm making my own version of this chair. Without wood bending capability I'll change the design to one with a crest rail. I've been wanting to try some chair-making techniques that I've learned about (and have made some tools for). I'll post about that next time.
Interesting chair, I really like the form.
ReplyDeleteMaybe build a scaled up version for adults?
I would highly recommend trying bending. Bought a kit at Rockler just need to make a steam box. pretty inexpensive about $100 plus wood.
On my to do list somewhere...
Bob
I'd love to try wood bending someday, but space for a steam box is a problem. And I can't really do it outside because of where I live. Perhaps I can get into thin strip glue-ups for bending. But that will never be as strong as riven and shaved pieces that have the fibers aligned everywhere in the bend. Compromises ...
DeleteJust how big of a steam box do you have in mind?? Should not take much room, depending on sizes of pieces of course, but in chairmaking surely 4, 5 ft should be plenty long for big back bent?? Yeah, that does not seems so small after all :-)
ReplyDeleteOh well, make small children chairs :-)
Bob, with a never ending supply of bright ideas :-)
I would use it by the garage door (opened) for the steam.
Even on this small chair the bent piece is about 42" long (and maybe it started out oversize). So I'd expect for a normal size chair a steam box to hold a 5 foot board would be adequate. Maybe one of these days after my wife retires and we move somewhere else I'll have a bit more space.
DeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteWhile I have not tried bending this way, C.S. has said that for small projects a tub of water in the oven works as well as a steam box. I don't remember much about what he posted but I'll bet a google will find it.
BTW, nice find. It should make a great template.
ken
Just read that Schwarz blog post. That could certainly work for a crest rail, but I'd have to figure out something else for a curved arch piece, that is 3-4 feet long. BTW, I was thinking about the small chair(s) you made a year or two ago as I was getting ready to build my own. Very inspiring.
DeleteMy great grandfather was often using hazelnut tree when doing wood bending. Apparently it is very flexible and strong, never tried this though.
ReplyDeleteThat might be the first reference to hazelnut tree wood I've ever heard about. Interesting. Might have to look in some books now to see if they say anything about it.
DeleteInteresting video
ReplyDeletesteaming without a steam box.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50uXPPt8-VI
Yeah, I just saw that one recently. I love the method he uses to see how much water is left in the cans. Genius!
Delete