Dining Chair Fix
It’s been a while since I last posted in May, but I’ve been busy. In addition to maintaining a 101-year-old house, I went backpacking in June, travelled to Africa for almost three weeks in July, went backpacking again a couple of weeks ago, and am prepping for another trip next week (assuming I can finally rid myself of the bug (RSV?) I picked up in Africa). All that to say I haven’t had much time to work on the dining chairs.
One of them is currently at the Orange County Fair, where I entered it in the Furniture/Chair category – not much furniture there this year and only three chairs in my category. I was awarded third place, which could be construed as last place, depending on how you look at it. I think I’ll go with “third place.”
Anyway, after playing around with multiple spacers and bouncing around between the new chair and a couple of older dining chairs, I decided I need to raise the chair height by 1-1/4″. A recent post on the Lost Art Press site made the case for lowering the seat height of dining chairs to 15 or 16″ (!), but that would entail also lowering the height of the table. Maybe someday, but not now. We’ll make sure our short guests sit elsewhere.
The process went better than expected and I’m really happy with how the first chair came out. I’ll get to the other chair when I get it back from the fair.
As usual, if you have any suggestions for future videos, let me know in the comments or shoot me an email.
Gooe to see you’re still at it.
Thanks Carl. Glad you are enjoying your retirement. With regard to the OC fair it is commendable just to be in the game. On chair seat height the typical is 18 inches. Take care.
Paul, did you read the Lost Art Press article? Interesting take on seat height. He makes a good case for a lower seat, along with a lower table. As someone who is 6′ 2″, it never occurs to me that 18″ might be high for some people. And now those chairs are 19″! Like I said, I’ll make sure only tall people use them.
No I did see/read the article on chair height. Take care. Oaul
Having worked on behalf of OC Woodworkers Association as a docent at Fair booth allow me to share with you that more than a couple of people asked me about the “woven seat.” Quite complimentary of the workmanship. Be proud young man and keep pursuing your avocation. I was flattening and sharpening a new set of chisels recently (incredible bargain on Facebook Marketplace-the prior owner told me “they just don’t work..”)Remembered how my hand tools professor showed me how to flatten / sharpen – dare I say they “cut like butter” now.
Thanks Tony! Someone also emailed me about the chair and complimented me on the grain selection. Nice to know some people appreciate the attention to detail.
Also glad to hear you were able to take chisels that “just don’t work” and get them working well. You can’t get those skills just by watching videos on YouTube. Nice work!