gearing up to reproduce a set of 1905 chairs

[sean m. titmas]

my latest project involves accurately reproducing a set of this chair in g. mahogany and leather. as with any project of this level i like to get input from others as to their thoughts and suggestions on the different acpects involved.

building this chair involves using a lot of different skills such as, relief carving, cabriolet legs, steam bent back rest, and lots of hand work in shaping the various pieces.

i am opening this thread up to invite any and all comments and suggestions about different methods for completing this project. everything from making duplicate copies of pieces to the joinery methods you would use. there are no drawings however i will have this chair shown in the photos at my shop when i begin building. the client wants this project to be as close as possible to the original with the exception that the finish be somewhat darker than the original because it has been refinished in recent years which has lighted the stain up considerably(can be seen by looking at bottom of seat) and the hard carved seat will be replaced with a leather cushion as seen in the B&W photo of the original. there are no good close up photos of the cushion detail so i will have to use my better judgment and decide what looks best and most accurately represents the original.

my goal with this project, aside from successfully completing this project, would be to refresh an old skill or learn a new one. there are many tips or tricks for doing some of these steps involved in this project and i want to see or hear from others.. listening to others always opens up new view points and i want to push the envelope with this project and learn something new.

[sean m. titmas]

here are a few more photos.

[Dustin Powers]

I just hope one day I can dream of trying to reproduce those chairs. I'll be excited to see what you come up with. Good Luck!

[Bruce Page]

Sean, how many are you building? This is way above my talent level but I will enjoy watching your progress.
The old railcar pictures are very cool.

[sean m. titmas]

the client wants 5. i am going to build a full size mockup from poplar and a extra mahogany in case something happens to one of the 5. if not than it will go in my office. so it will be a total of 7 chairs.

[David G Baker]

Them thar chairs are awrsome. Please post your progress. The chairs look similar to chairs that Bruners (sp?) made in Sacramento CA back in that time period. Bruners made most of the furniture that is/was in the offices in the capitol building in Sacramento. Beautiful work.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Sean, it looks like your bandsaw, shaper and spokeshave will get a workout.

When I make a run of chairs, I make template jigs with DeStaco clamps to hold the pieces while I run them in the shaper. This makes all the pieces identical, and it's fast as I bandsaw them a few mm oversize without worrying about accuracy too much.

The template has the accuracy built into it.

I'd like to follow your progress, please keep us posted......Rod.

[sean m. titmas]

After being distracted with having to build a few cabinets to pay the bills i was able to fully concentrate on building my sample chair. Since I have six chairs to build I wanted to make sure that the templateing process was not only accurate as possible but through enough to make the process simple to follow. I started by taking the chair and making cardstock templates of every piece in the chair. Once the templates were cut out I made notes on them to detail the angles, curves, thicknesses and what type of joints are used. I made a copy of the card stock template from .25” plywood on the pieces that I planned to cut with a bandsaw and clean up with a bearing bit. This made the process quicker and more accurate than hand work alone. I completed the sample chair in about 30 hours. The reason for building the chair was to plot the joinery and work through using the templates. I assembled the chair with dowels and a few screws so i can dissemble the pieces to set up the jigs for using machines and hand tools.