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Thought you all might enjoy this.
A fancy hotel nearby purchased 400 dining chairs through a furniture store I occasionally sell through. The furniture store got a prototype from the Italian manufacturer, it looked good, and so placed the order for 400 chairs at about $175 US apiece. (Do the math. Alot of dough.)
The chairs arrived just a while ago. Big bridal affair at the hotel and the management gives a pair of these beauts to the happy couple, complete with brass anniversary plate attatched. Groom sits down, POW! Down he goes.
Furniture store calls Italy. Sorry, no refund. Comes to see me about a fix for these 400 pieces of potential firewood (not lawsuits tho, this is Japan, afterall). I can only shake my head at this design. Short grain at the highest stress point. Joined at this stress point by an incredibly shallow finger joint. As you can also see, they did think about putting in a small dowel, but then thought better of it and left it out.
Any suggestions on a fix? I thought about running a long dowel through the finger joint into the short grain to add a little strength, but of course can give no guarantees on this.
On top of this, the moisture content of the wood was high when they built them. Most of the tops of the legs are split due to shrinkage pressure on the tenons.
Gee, wish I could make 400 chairs and laugh all the way to the bank.
the rev
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*Well, did some more checking on my attatchements.(which I should have done before even starting this discussion.) The first two pics are corrupt. I apologize for taking up space here with extra notes and deleted messages. Will re-do those shots and attach later. Mea culpa.the rev
*Rev,Pics came through fine for me. I can see the problem very clearly. Don't think a doweled joint will last, unless maybe you use a 12" steel rod and epoxy.:)Dano
*Rev, Strange idea but how about adovetailed "dutchman" going across the joint. Obviously deeper than normal. Granted this would change the look of the piece and would be time consuming and I must admit I'm not totally sure it would actually work. Sure would need to test it. I don't envy you with 400 chairs to do whatever you decide on.
*Maybe a big loose tenon, perpendicular to the face of the miter joint? Hidden on the top side so you don't normally see it, but have it come through on the back side for maximum glue area. You'd need a router with a deep plunge or straight bit, and probably 4 jigs.... Good luck,Mike
*Hi Tekton,Interestingly enough, if the finger joint had been done properly (with longer fingers) it would have been strong joint. And the manufacturing process wouldn't have had to change at all, just the shaper cutter - it would have been exactly the same cost per unit. Just intellectual laziness I guess. Too bad it's Japan. The company should be sued.But how to implement a fix? A floating tenon is the right idea, but I think a spline would be better because you need to maximize both your glue surface and the strength of the spline. But it's going to be hard to jig up the cut without taking the chair apart, it won't be an invisible repair and you'll need to refinish. Once you jig up though, it should go pretty fast. The time and money will be in the refinishing.Best,Kim Carleton GravesCarleton Woodworking
*Tekton,Having a day to think about my post from last night, I'd like to change my mind. I don't thing the solution I offered in my last post (the spline) will work. For one thing, if that one joint was made with very shallow fingers, I would assume the others are as well. Unless you fix them all, you'll have a never ending problem. For another thing, in order for the spline to work you'll need to have a clean glue line at the shoulder so the joint doesn't rock and break again. That will be difficult to execute unless you cut all the joints apart and that will be difficult to do cleanly. From your post I'm not sure if you've been asked to repair the two chairs given to the couple or all 400. If the former, they might be willing to spend the money for sentimental reasons. But if it's all 400, it seems unjustifiable to spend several hundred dollars per unit to repair an item that initially cost only $175. Best,Kim Carleton GravesCarleton Woodworking
*Everyone, Thanks for the input. I'm not sure how these people will want to proceed, throwing more money into these or not. After fooling around a bit more on these, I may have come up with something. It does change the look a bit, and will take some time and money, but the chair will be strong. Even if the joint area is strengthened, there still remains the orientation of the cross grain as the back piece curves inward. The back seems to plane in very close to the back seat rail, so if you look at the picture, maybe an additional back support might work.the rev
*Tekton, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but man, dem things is plain ugly to my eyes! Part of the ugliness comes from the thick sections which are probably necesary to give the back some rigidity.A quick and dirty fix might be to put a couple of deep splines in from the side - that's about the only way I can see to keep grain orientation ok. I agree with Kim - fixes that take more than an hour apiece will be throwing good money after bad. It would be cheaper and better to remake them.IW
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