Jamie Buxton
05-22-2006, 11:10 AM
It seems to me that most livingroom chairs must have been designed for use by orangutans. The chair arms are too low and too far apart to provide any support for human arms. Me, I want the chair arms to provide support for my arms while I'm holding a book or a newspaper. I designed the pictured chair with the idea that the arms would be useful.
The chair is honduras mahogany lumber and khaya veneer. The lumber was mostly bandsawn roughly to shape, and cleaned up with a handplane and/or sander. The joinery is mostly loose tenon and mortise. I generally use loose tenons on pieces like this, where nothing meets at nice angles. (The back is narrower than the front. This, combined with the curves, means that there are no joints which meet at 90 degrees.) The substrate under the seat and back cushions is just plywood, not webbing. The back plywood is double-curved to fit my back. It was formed in a vacuum press from six layers of 1/8" bending ply over a bending form. The arm pads are built like slip seats: a wooden buck (curved in this case) with dense foam glued to it, covered with fabric. The fabric staples to the bottom of the pad. Connector bolts come up through the arm to T-nuts in the buck.
Visually, the chair turned out to be kinda Danish Modern. I'd started out with the idea that it would be Arts & Crafts, but somewhere along the line it changed. I like the looks, but more importantly I like the feel. It is a very comfortable chair for me.
The chair is honduras mahogany lumber and khaya veneer. The lumber was mostly bandsawn roughly to shape, and cleaned up with a handplane and/or sander. The joinery is mostly loose tenon and mortise. I generally use loose tenons on pieces like this, where nothing meets at nice angles. (The back is narrower than the front. This, combined with the curves, means that there are no joints which meet at 90 degrees.) The substrate under the seat and back cushions is just plywood, not webbing. The back plywood is double-curved to fit my back. It was formed in a vacuum press from six layers of 1/8" bending ply over a bending form. The arm pads are built like slip seats: a wooden buck (curved in this case) with dense foam glued to it, covered with fabric. The fabric staples to the bottom of the pad. Connector bolts come up through the arm to T-nuts in the buck.
Visually, the chair turned out to be kinda Danish Modern. I'd started out with the idea that it would be Arts & Crafts, but somewhere along the line it changed. I like the looks, but more importantly I like the feel. It is a very comfortable chair for me.