Unique chairs

[hespj]

Just finished this a few days ago.

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1311

The sides are steel, but the wood is ShopBotted. Twelve seats, each with sixteen pieces of wood = over 200 pieces including spares.

[fleinbach]

John,

Great chair!

How where the steel sides made. They look like they would be an awfull lot of work to make.

[hespj]

They WERE an awful lot of work to make. I didn't make the steel work, but drew the whole chair in Rhino, made templates and jigs (all ShopBotted), and cut the wood.

The steelwork is hollow except the forged feature at the top. The "h" shaped sides were plasma cut using templates cut on the ShopBot. The front and backs of the hollow section, and the internal frames are 1 1/2" x 1/8" steel.

Three sides of the section were tack welded together on a ShopBotted MDF core, then the core was removed, some frames put in, then the fourth side tacked on.

After welding and cleaning the twos sides were joined in an MDF jig (parts cut on SB) with the forged top and some cross braces under the wood.

[fleinbach]

That sounds like some expensive chairs. That's what I thought you did but it seemed like so much work no one would pay the price.

[jay_p]

Very nice chair John. It is interesting too, that you used jigs and templates that you worked out in Rhino and the Bot to facilitate the welding and assembly process.

Jay

[hespj]

Thanks guys. I think us regular folk underestimate just how rich some people are, and what to us seems absurdly expensive is loose change to them. In my experience what they want is unique items - "Nobody else has got anything like this, right?" - and what they don't want is to feel ripped off; they seem to spend their lives fending off people who are intent on ripping them off. And when the plumber turns up in a Ferrari (true), I think they have good cause.

Having said all that, overall we didn't do particularly well out of them - we knew that making twelve chairs would be very time consuming; chairs are such commonplace items that people have a good idea what they should cost; and we had to avoid charging more than the client would feel comfortable with. It was very much a case of "keep the client happy" ready for the next jobs.

I managed to do okay on the woodwork by getting a second Z axis and cutting two pieces at once. The thought of cutting them without a ShopBot is mind boggling. As well as speeding up many jobs, I've found the ShopBot opens the door wide into the world of "unique", producing items that most other woodworkers can't make. Exiting times!!