So thanks to everyone who answered my question about how to tell fake from real with the 670. I just scored a decent quality knock off at the local shop. White vinyl (classy), cherry ply, arms that are decently padded - not just overwrapped and stapled, and most surprising - a five star base that is almost identical to the originals. All for a scant $150.
There is a tag on the bottom that says the chair was made in Lawrence, MA, but I cant find any company name.
Aside from Selig and Plycraft were there other companies that knocked off the lounge? Not just 'inspired by" but really trying to reproduce? Or a history of knock-offs?
Life with a knock off
okay.. first thing I've been noticing...well.. aside from the glares of my roommates for bringing a white vinyl chair into the house, is the size. Holy cow this thing is remarkably bigger than the actual lounge chair! At 5'9'" my head only comes 2/3's of the way up the headrest.
Second thing I noticed is that this chair always looks like its 'sitting up straight' whereas the originals have a nice tilt back. This one does tilt with someone sitting in it. I may try to rig it so that it leans more permanently.
Does anyone have suggestions about re-upholstering? Has anyone had this done? I've found RetroRedo, and they look good..except for the one on their website re-done in metallic purple. eeek!.
PS. Retroredo.com is a good resource for redoing Eames fiberglass shell upholstery.
reupholstering
Reupholstering these chairs is very easy. I've done three so far and I just do it for fun, not for a living. I think any decent upholsterer can do a good job on these---no need to take it to a mod furniture specialist.
All you do is wrap the leather around the foam cushion and staple it to the back of the inner plywood shell. Then add welt around the edge, also stapling to the inner shell.
Next, cover 3/4" or 1" buttons with leather and thread with tufting cord. Use a long needle to get the cord through the cushion to the back, where it goes through a hole in the shell. Pull it tight and staple the cord to the plywood so that it can't slip back out.
Fit the inner shell back into the outer shell.
I get very nice leather hides on ebay for about $90-125 each plus shipping. You need about 50 square feet to do one lounge chair and ottoman. I use the old leather as patterns for the four main pieces and cut the strips for welt out from whatever is left over.
Love you spanky!
Dude, (or dudette) you are the best! I have some ideas about what I'd like to do to this chair. First... I'm considering cutting the back down to the same size as the original. This chair is just SO imposingly tall (42" to the original's 33") . Second, I can handle most of the upholstery.. I've been in the library all morning. The arms may be a little daunting. - I may have them professionally done. Also - on this one the welting is sewn to the chair vinyl before being stretched, but that is just a detail - if they look the same when finished. And I may also cut the base pipe down a wee bit.. again to lower the height.
I'm looking to get as much of the look as the original - while not trying to fool anyone.. if that makes sense. Like.. all the screws all over the place.. and the iron bar holding the back up.
Spanky, if you have any more tips feel free to email me at my posting name @ yahoo.com - or on here for everyone. Really appreciate the help so far.
dudette here
The first chair I reupholstered had the welt sewn to the seat cover. I tried to re-do it that way and it was VERY difficult to get it all just right. The welt has to be alligned with the edge of the outer shell and that's just too hard to do! Stapling it on separately to the inner shell gives exactly the same look when finished but is way easier to get perfect.
What kind of arm rests does your chair have? Are they single plane platforms or do they have two planes? Both will have leather over foam with the leather wrapped around the edges and stapled underneath. They are then screwed to a plywood base (usually painted black, I think) which covers the staples. But you still will see a lot of little tucks in the leather underneath.
I have not altered the single plane armrests, though I've considered it. I've done two of those chairs and just redid them as the originals were. It does look cheap, though, even when done neatly with good leather.
The other chair I did had the 2-plane armrests. I added 1" thick firm foam, glued with 3M spray adhesive to the curved plywood base, then cut a top and side piece out of leather, plus two pieces for the underside. I planned to do it as a welted slipcover type thing that would then be stapled to the curved plywood armrest base.
However, this was just way too difficult. It had to be fitted just right and it had to be sewn exactly right the first time because the needle leaves perforations that don't close up, plus they weaken the leather.
I gave up on that and instead just did the top welt, wrapped the sides around to the underside of the curved plywood base and stapled them. Then I stapled welt to that edge and covered the underside with pieces of leather cut to fit exactly up to the welt and glued them in place with rubber cement. It looks great and you'd have to get under the chair with a good light to tell that it's cut and glued.
Are you going to make the welt yourself? You'll need a sewing machine with a strong motor (mine is a Bernina but there are other good ones), a leather needle or two (they do break) and a welt foot. I use the standard 5/16" welt cord and I cut and overlap and glue any seams in the welt that are necessary.
Let me know if you have any other questions! Oh, and check out kysonleather on ebay. Luscious stuff!
Welts all over the place
Hey spanky
The chair I have has a single welted armrest - so I may just shell out at an upholsterer for that - maybe even have them make them double welted like the original. All of the rest of the stuff I think I can handle.. im pretty crafty.
Do you have any history on the plycraft company? I'm kind of curious about the story. And I'm having a mild crisis of conscience about cutting the backrest down to a manageable size...mostly because I know these chairs do have a decent resale value... but I'm also one of those anal people who can spot the differences between the fake and the original...and it just kills me how huge this thing is. Oy. I've got some time to contemplate it, and I've been checking out the leather selection on ebay.
Do you think I need to back the leather with anything? or will it be strong enough on its own? I've not worked with leather in an upholstery fashion before so I'm reading up on it. Thus far I havent seen anything about backing, but thought I'd ask.
And some day soon I will get a flickr account so I can post images of before and after. 😀
Plycraft
I don't know a thing about Plycraft--sorry! I have seen the same chair with both Selig and Plycraft labels and I find it all very confusing.
I'd like to see a "before" of your armrests when you get a chance. I haven't seen any knockoffs with welt though there seem to be other little variations. Sometimes the photos online are so bad that it's hard to make out any details.
I haven't backed the leather with anything and none of the leather I've removed had any backing, so I think you're fine there. I read something once about how the real Eames chairs are done in glove leather but I don't know if that's true or not. I sat in one in Harrod's and wasn't aware of the leather being softer and thinner than the stuff I've used but that doesn't mean it wasn't!
I've had the most trouble with the buttons. The garden variety covered button kits in the fabric stores are not strong enough for upholstery. They pop apart almost immediately. I came up with a system where I cover the outer part and then epoxy a plastic button threaded with cord to the inside. Except that some of these don't even hold all that well. I'm going to use JB Weld adhesive when I redo them.
The problem also is that the leather is so thick that you can't fit the inner part into the outer button shell once the leather is on. A professional upholsterer would probably have heavy duty button kits. You should ask about that when you get the armrests done.
At work
I was out on a meeting last week and one of the offices had a 670 in rosewood. i couldnt tell if it was a new version or a vintage one - but my boss had to physically restrain me from dashing in to check it out.
So I posted some photos of my chair in the link below. As you can see its trying pretty hard to be the real deal. The base is cast aluminum - not chrome, as are the supports for the headrest. The headrest supports also have the heavy rubber washers in them - unlike most of the repros I've seen. The arms are single welted - I was looking at pics of the original to determine if it was something I could do... but unlike the single welt, the double welt has to be sewn on a curved pattern, or else you get that ugly bunching look. Eeek.. no way in hades I could manage that.
I think I'm sold on the black leather - kyson is sending me a small sample just in case. And a deeeeeeeeep cherry stain. Love it.
Now.. what are your thoughts on cutting the backrest down a few inches to bring it into proportion of the 670? I'm feeling vaguely guilty about it - the chair IS vintage...but will i ever own a 670? Dilemma....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38178174@N00/
wow!
That is yet another variation of the knockoffs!
I think I've seen that big headrest before but I don't remember seeing those half-welted armrests ever. I did mine that way but with curved pieces to eliminate the bunching, and then I also stapled welt around the bottom edge and glued cut pieces on the bottom right up to the welt. I have done lots and lots of upholstering and this was still very tricky to do, so I think you are smart to farm out this job. The rest should be very easy.
I had to go check my photo archive to compare headrests. Then I had to make a JPG with yours and a Plycraft and an Eames just for ease of comparison (link below).
My Plycraft chair has a slightly shorter headrest that is also wider at the top than at the bottom, which makes it look less clunky. The back is taller, too. You can see that these proportions are really different from the Eames chair! And your chair has another variation---the headrest looks about the same size and shape as the Eames chair but the back is taller.
I think the Plycraft chair has OK proportions even though they're not like the Eames chair. Yours kinda bugs me though, and I can see why it bugs you. I would cut it down if it won't mess up the back connectors and if you can make a perfect cut. That's not the kind of thing I would attempt but then my expertise is much more in the textiles department. My saw work is rather crude.
I would cut the back down and not the headrest.
I have not seen any cast aluminum bases ever!
your chair on Ebay
Check out 220010713031 on Ebay--looks like what you have, no? I definitely haven't seen that base before. Also, this one doesn't look as tall as yours but it's kind of hard to tell because the photos aren't very good.
How is the foam in the seat of your chair? Every one of these that I've gotten has had really cheap foam that was quite deteriorated with very little resilience left. I replaced the seats in all and some other parts with high density foam from JoAnn Fabrics (which is medium density compared to what is out there).
New foam will bring the seat height up if the old foam is no good anymore. That would make the back look shorter.
I've seen that one
I've seen that one before. I spent the past week scouring the web for images of various knockoffs..maybe I'll put a gallery up or something. On that one the back is definitely shorter than mine. But mine was made by Plycraft - the label on the bottom says Lowell MA - where Plycraft was located. Unfortunately almost NO info exists on these two companies (Selig too)
One dealer emailed me this morning saying he thinks Plycraft is still around but couldnt give any more info. Does anyone know if this is true?
I've noticed that a lot of the examples I see, the backrest doesnt undercut the armrests as much as mine and the original does. It seems weird that Plycraft would manufacture SO many different varieties of the same chair.
Also - check out the link I'm including for American Atelier's "Modern Lounge" The base looks the same - but they are based in the south, not MA. Conundrums all over the place.
Oh... and Herman Millers reply to an inquiry reads "Herman Miller does not keep track of imitators."
http://www.americanatelierinc.com/lounge.html
the foam seems to be fine
the foam seems to be fine under the vinyl, but the vinly is a bit stiff, so it may need a little extra batting when the time arrives. i dont want to over pad it... I've seem some fakes that look like the Staypuff Marshmallow man. I want a mid range poof - not limp, not overly firm. puns totally intended. ;-D
Still Looking for info on Plycraft
Still looking for info on Plycraft and Selig Mfg Companies. In the book 1000 Chairs the Cherner Chair is listed as being made by Plycraft in Lawrence, MA to present day. But a web search yields no info - other than that their address is listed as a Superfund (environmental disaster) site. Oops.
Spanky - do you have any info on the tags of your chairs?
tag info
My chair's tag just says "Selig Manufacturing Co., Inc. - Green Street - Leominster, Mass." and "Lic. No. Mass. 334" plus the usual stuff about materials and warnings.
I googled "Selig Manufacturing" and got a few links that might help. One is this online guest book signed by the nephew of Selig's owner. You might try emailing him.
http://members.aol.com/SueG476/GB4014.html
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