The red chair

[Thumbthumper]

Thought I'd post some pics of my current WIP.

Found for $15 on some local classifieds.

It's a Melbourne Company Emu chair. Probably early 1900's.
Blackwood spindles and legs. Kauri seat and Hoop pine steam pressed back.
The seat is an obvious replacement. From photos online, it looks like they were a four piece frame with a caned centre.
I'll have a go at making a new one including the caning.

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It would have originally looked like this.

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First part of the process is to take it all apart.
I had to deepen the screw slots to take the long and rusty screws out to release the seat. I used a Dremel and a cutting disc.
They came out fine after that.

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I used a heat gun to warm the glue in the joints. I then gently tapped the joints apart.
I didn't break any spindles

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The red paint was easy to scrape off as it had been painted directly over the original varnish.
A bit of heat and it took no time at all.

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I'll clean it all down with metho and steel wool later.
All the spindles will be put into the lathe to finish cleaning and to give them a polish.

This may take some time to complete as I'm stupidly busy at the moment, but I'll post some pics when I get back to it.

Cheers all,
Stu

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I got a chance to do some more cleaning.

The spindles.
I scrubbed them down and gave them their first coat of polish whilst spinning in the lathe.
Before, during and after ...

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I used some stripper and steel wool to get the last of the paint and varnish off the back.
You can see the emus now

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I cut up some old kauri stair treads to make the seat frame.
You can see the wear from thousands of shoes on the tread in this pic.

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I can now glue the chair together. I'll do that soon and then build the seat frame.

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I started the first bit of the glue-up this afternoon.

The hide glue is warming and the bits are laid out ready.
I can't begin to describe the earthy smell in the shed at the moment

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The first stage.
After this, I glued on the back, back legs, and spindle.

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Whenever I use hide glue in the workshop, I only have to pop out for a second and my dog takes up residence. That glue must smell very good if you're a bloodhound

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The chair is now all glued up.
I've started work on the seat frame.

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I marked out a rough template on the old seat to get the dimensions for the frame.

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Ripping and planing off the kauri boards.

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Marking out the frame with the sliding bevel. I Knifed the lines and chiseled to the line for a crisp tenon shoulder.

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Next job is to cut the mortices and tenons.

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I spent the morning working on the mortices and tenons.

I used the router plane to make sure the tenons were perfectly parallel. It needs to be a good fit for the seat frame.
I've chopped out the front mortices. 2nd pic is the dry fit. I still need to make up the back section.

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The only other thing I achieved was a couple of rubs of polish on the chair frame.

[burraboy]

I've played around with a few of these and similar over the years. I've usually found that the spindles aren't glued, just free in the holes, and the seats are usually dowelled rather than m&t'ed. Are you going for a hand caned seat or the press fit?
Should turn out alright!

[Thumbthumper]

I've played around with a few of these and similar over the years. I've usually found that the spindles aren't glued, just free in the holes, and the seats are usually dowelled rather than m&t'ed. Are you going for a hand caned seat or the press fit?
Should turn out alright!

The spindles were a tight fit, but there was old glue residue in each of the holes and on the tips of the spindles. I can only guess that they would have been glued originally?

I haven't seen an original seat for one of these, and they may well have been dowelled. They were all machine made, so this wouldn't surprise me. I'm hoping that M&Ts will be as strong if not stronger than dowells. The frame needs to be as strong as possible.

I'm (or SWMBO is) going to have a go at hand caning. I'll be drilling all the holes once the seat is completed. The spacing is determined by the cane size. The holes also need to be drilled at different angles so that there is not a weak strip around the inside of the seat frame.

If anyone has one of these chairs, please fell free to knock the seat apart and take some photos for me .

[springwater]

I have one thats been following me around for about twenty years. It sits in the garage at the moment with a cardboard box containing I cant remember what off the concrete floor. It has one broken leg that someone has tried to fix badly but other than that it's ok except for the seat as you can see has had better days. I thought the pics may help, sorry about the quality though. I can't determine how it's joined, definately no holes drilled through for the caning though.
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I have one thats been following me around for about twenty years. It sits in the garage at the moment with a cardboard box containing I cant remember what off the concrete floor. It has one broken leg that someone has tried to fix badly but other than that it's ok except for the seat as you can see has had better days. I thought the pics may help, sorry about the quality though. I can't determine how it's joined, definately no holes drilled through for the caning though.

Wow, thanks for the pics.

From what I see it looks like the canes are coming up through holes? Is there no cane poking through underneath?
If not, I'm wondering how the cane insert is attached.

I'm pretty sure in any case that if we hand cane and bind it with the same shape it'll come up ok.

[springwater]

Hang on Thumper I'm tucking into a Tassie Atlantic salmon at the moment and nothings going to stop medoing that. I'll post a pic or two of the underside soon.

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Hang on Thumper I'm tucking into a Tassie Atlantic salmon at the moment and nothings going to stop medoing that. I'll post a pic or two of the underside soon.

Nice .....

I've just finished my slow-cooked lamb shanks and a red wine gravy. Time to put the feet up and digest

Thanks for your time.

[springwater]

Ok got the old girl out into some fading light. No holes drilled through the seat except for two, one on either side, not sure of their purpose though, see pic of underside. What I thought was a repair isn't, it's just the way the seat is fixed to the leg. See how the thicker cane is recessed into the seat? The back rest is definately tennoned in, I assume the seat is joined the same way. I'm also assuming the chair has the remenants of its original seat, sure looks like it.

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[Thumbthumper]

Yep, that definitely looks like remnants of the original caning. Some sort of manufactured insert.
It also seems that there is a routed chamfer on the front and back sections of the seat frame. I'll do something similar I suppose.
The whole back section is tennoned, I've already put all that back together.

Once again, thanks for the pics. It's a great help.

[springwater]

No probs

[burraboy]

The seats on these spindle backs were usually 'pressed cane' like in Springwaters example. A groove is routed into the seat and the pre-woven cane is pressed in when it is wet and is glued and held with a rattan 'plug' as you can see in the pic. All these seats are notoriously shortlived, especially the hand woven ones. The thickness of the seat is another factor which will lead to its early demise. Hand woven bentwood chairs have at least 1" of seat thickness and a round shape which gives extra strength. I suspect you only have about a 3/4" seat thickness to work with and straight lines which will be very fragile, even with offset holes.
The best solution I have found for these seats is to use a leather insert in a shallow rebate along the inside edge of the seat. The leather can be hand tooled into some interesting designs. Either that or use solid seats, they can be shaped nicely too.