Description
In this video, I restore a Danish Mid-Century Modern chair frame to (close to) its former glory by installing corner blocks, making a seat and chair back, and upholstering it. Unfortunately, the upholstery footage was lost, but it was mostly me making a mess of sewing!
Some of the challenges involved in this were the angles and the curves. Having to fit everything perfect to a chair frame that, though very solid and well built, was slender and fully of interesting lines made things a bit unusual.
For the curved back, you'll see that I resawed some yellow pine to about 1/4" thick and then planed them down to about 1/8" and glued them in a bending form. Though this gave a great curve, it didn't leave much thickness to sink a screw into so I could mount the chair back. I added some blocking to the edges and blended it all together to keep it looking light and thin, but it have the substance now to take a screw and a dowel, too.
About the grain direction of the seat, I oriented it so it would try to cup in the direction the seat is actually bent. I left some wiggle room in the screw holes in the chair frame corner blocks, too. These boards are very dry and should not move much, but that said, I think I've got it all taken into account.
For the upholstery, I used regular seat foam for the seat itself, stapling it down. That was easy. The back needed to have stitching all the way around, and I didn't want the final hand stitches to show very easily, so I hid them along the bottom with about 200 minuscule stitches. It was also tricky trying to get the lines of the fabric to flow from seat to back, but I managed it.
Overall, a great experience that I learned a lot from. I ended up not having to redo the finish, thank goodness. It now sits in our living room, and it looks great! Thanks for watching, and I hope you like the video!
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Thanks!
Andrew