White Oak mission chairs

Dave Black

Member
Messages
638
Location
Central PA
Heres some dining chairs that I finally finished, they go with the white oak and walnut table that I built a few years ago. They are finished finished with sprayed Minmax polyurethane, I put 2 coats on the frames and 3 on the seats.
 

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Okay Dave, first of all, excellent looking chairs! They remind me of the chairs in the high school office when I was in school! I have cast offs and such around the dining room table as the chairs I run across seem quite expensive and they don't seem sturdy. How are these for comfort? (hey, a self imposed diet plan if they aren't comfy I guess!!!)
I don't see a horizontal bar tieing the left legs to the right legs. There is a bar for tieing the front to the back, would one more in the middle of that bar stop them from "racking"??
This is a project I am highly interested in and wonder these things about your chairs. I am interested in plans or dimensions if you care to share them. They are a very nice set of chairs and the table is outstanding also!!!
 
Okay Dave, first of all, excellent looking chairs! They remind me of the chairs in the high school office when I was in school! I have cast offs and such around the dining room table as the chairs I run across seem quite expensive and they don't seem sturdy. How are these for comfort? (hey, a self imposed diet plan if they aren't comfy I guess!!!)
I don't see a horizontal bar tieing the left legs to the right legs. There is a bar for tieing the front to the back, would one more in the middle of that bar stop them from "racking"??
This is a project I am highly interested in and wonder these things about your chairs. I am interested in plans or dimensions if you care to share them. They are a very nice set of chairs and the table is outstanding also!!!

The chairs are comfy for me, they are probably on the large size compared to most chairs. There is no horizontal bar between the legs, I was planning on doing this during the designing phase but I decided not to after I had the prototype chair and found no need for it, The legs are 1.5" square and are quite strong, the rear legs are one piece from top to bottom and so there isn't any flex. The rear legs are 2 pieces steam bent over a form and glue laminated together. I can sit in the chair and lean back on 1 leg and the chair doesn't flex or anything.
The back of the chair is 36" tall, the front of the seat is 18" high, the back of the seat is 17". The seats are 18 1/4" wide and 15 1/2" deep. The 15 1/2" is from the front of the rear legs to the front of the seat, overall seat depth is 17 1/2". I am not sure what the angle is of the rear legs. When I designed the chairs I just took one of my old dining chairs and laid it on some large paper and traced it out then drew what I wanted the new chairs to look like over top of the old one. I just kept the same seat height and back angles. Let me know if you need me to measure something else or whatever.
 
I was planning on doing this during the designing phase but I decided not to after I had the prototype chair and found no need for it,

hi dave! those are some really nice chairs, but i also have to agree with jon about the front legs. i looked at the pics long and hard, and while the back legs are pretty well supported for side to side motion, the only thing keeping the front legs from racking side to side is the board they're attached to in the front. when i made the prototype for my chairs, i gave it a real wrenching around, all 245 lbs of me. i wrenched front to back, side to side, up on each variation of 2 legs, and slamming back down with me on it, and finally, grabbing the side aprons, and twisted to beat all while sitting on it. that way i know that no matter how one flops down on the good chairs, they won't go out from under them, and they're solid oak, around 35-40lbs each.
 
Let me see....:huh: about 21 pieces each chair multiplied by 6 it makes a total of 126 pieces plut the table.

That's a lot of work you've done here Dave! Congratulations! both the chairs and the table look great!
 
Let me see....:huh: about 21 pieces each chair multiplied by 6 it makes a total of 126 pieces plut the table.

That's a lot of work you've done here Dave! Congratulations! both the chairs and the table look great!

Theres actually 10 chairs total, theres only 6 at the table right now but I can cram all 10 around if we have friends over.


""hi dave! those are some really nice chairs, but i also have to agree with jon about the front legs. i looked at the pics long and hard, and while the back legs are pretty well supported for side to side motion, the only thing keeping the front legs from racking side to side is the board they're attached to in the front. when i made the prototype for my chairs, i gave it a real wrenching around, all 245 lbs of me. i wrenched front to back, side to side, up on each variation of 2 legs, and slamming back down with me on it, and finally, grabbing the side aprons, and twisted to beat all while sitting on it. that way i know that no matter how one flops down on the good chairs, they won't go out from under them, and they're solid oak, around 35-40lbs each.""


All I can say is the front legs are solid, I can flip the chair upside down and try to push the front legs together as hard as I can and they only slightly flex.

""very nice job on the chairs ,, what did you use for the contour of the seats? and was the backs steam bent as well?""

I used a pull shave that I made to hog out the seat contours then smoothed them out with a card scraper. It worked well and was fairly fast. The backs aren't steam bent. They are laminated from 2 and 3 pieces ( 3 for the tops and 2 for the bottom) and cut on the bandsaw
 

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I've never done a chair either and would like to. Those look great. I would love to see some shots of the parts and assembly process.
 
I've never done a chair either and would like to. Those look great. I would love to see some shots of the parts and assembly process.

Heres some, I don't have many pics of assembly or parts. The middle pic is the unfinished prototype.
 

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dave, nice looking set, 10, wow, thats a big set, I love the contour of the backs, I didnt have the experience or courage to do that when I made my set last year.
Finish looks great and they look sturdy as hec, and Im sure my huge body would be supported fine by them.
Congrats on finishing the dining set!
what mortiser did you use for all those mortises, and did it handle the oak ok?
 
dave, nice looking set, 10, wow, thats a big set, I love the contour of the backs, I didnt have the experience or courage to do that when I made my set last year.
Finish looks great and they look sturdy as hec, and Im sure my huge body would be supported fine by them.
Congrats on finishing the dining set!
what mortiser did you use for all those mortises, and did it handle the oak ok?

Drill press with a forsner bit, then chisel and hammer. After I hogged out the mortices on the drill press for all the pieces it took about 2 1/2 hours to clean up the mortices and fit the pieces for each chair.
 
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