Leather
Hi spanky, in a previous post you'd mentioned needing about 50sf of leather to do one of the chairs. How much extra did you have at the end? I'm trying to buy a piece of leather and they only have pieces under 50sf. If I'm doing the chair only (no ottomon) how much do you think it will take? Thanks!
Hmm..
I did one chair and ottoman with about 45 square feet of leather and had less than a square foot left over, plus some little scraps. So you would probably be safe with that amount for a chair only.
Sometimes there are small flaws in the leather that you need to work around and this can mean a less efficient layout of the pieces, resulting in greater waste. That's why I like to allow about 5 extra square feet.
If you're getting leather from Kyson, you can ask about flaws before you buy. I did this and got an assurance that I could return the hide if there wasn't enough to work around any flaws. Fortunately, the hide was OK.
It would be nice to know for sure before buying that the hide is perfect but I think that's one of the things you give up when buying at deep discount. So far it's worked out very well for me. I just bought another hide from them but haven't gotten it yet. It's smaller than I would like so I'll have to plan and cut very carefully!
Massachusetts is the Place!
apparently every Massachusetts furniture maker just felt the need to produce knockoffs. The link below is by another company - Charlton, of MA that produced eames knockoffs. Very true to the original I might add. And damn.. a good price. Unfortunately I just sent in the invoice for the new piece of leather. Oh well.. Do It Yourself is way more fun!
http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/fur/193672853.html
That's cheap!
I wonder if that set was redone. The foam looks more square at the edges. I had to trim mine down quite a bit to avoid that look. It's a pain to do.
Say--- are you looking for an ottoman? There's one on ebay right now: 200017254813 .
The veneer needs patching but otherwise it looks good (as long as you are redoing the leather, that is).
Selig, Plycraft, Carlton
Selig was in Leominster, as was Carlton - Plycraft was in Lawrence. My chair was made in Lawrence, but the tag reads C.F.A - possibly "Carlton Furniture A_____"? - or possibly another company. Oh yeah.. I called on the craigslist chair for a friend of mine - it had been sold in under 2 hours. lol.
Oh the humanity!!!
Horror... just.. sheer horror.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Eames-Mid-Century-Modern-Reclining-Lounge-Chair_W0QQ...
Yow!
That is so funny!
"Perfect for a person that wants an Eames Chair but also wants to seperate themselves from the rest. "
Yeah, I want an Eames chair but I want mine with big huge fasteners showing on the sides--just to be different!
I hope you're archiving all these variations. This is another new one to me!
Heya Spanky
todays the day - my leather came in last night, as I was returning from a trip to NYC to see the Eames Lounge: 50 Years exhibit. Man was that spectacular! Almost makes me want to toss out the repro downstairs and buy the real thing. Well.. except for the gigantic pricetag.
If you havent seen the exhibit I would recommend it. Aside from the treat of having a 670 provided to sit in, there are a few versions of earlier works - including a very early all plywood lounge, and the plywood elephant. It also gave me a great insight into how the 670 differs from the knockoffs.
So.. off I go to upholster!!! If I finish today I will take photos and post them soon!
LuciferSum
How's it going? Are you done yet? (chuckling)
I got all the pieces cut out and the welt made for my fourth knockoff which will be a 22nd birthday gift for kid #2. I got the leather stapled onto the headrest but that's it so far. Oh, and I got one button half done. We're also renovating a 12x32' room that will eventually showcase our better stuff that has been in storage in the attic, so the chair project is kinda on the back burner. No room to work on it, for one thing.
What size hide did you end up getting? I got about 45 square feet and it is more than enough for the chair and ottoman. There were no flaws to work around in the hide, which helped a lot. It had an odd cutout but nothing that interfered with the layout of the pieces. It can be tricky to lay out the main blocks and still have enough length left to cut a continuous strip for each piece of welt. I try to have only one joint per welt on the finished chair section or ottoman.
I've been holding off
Hey Spanky,
I did get a lot of the work done. So far I have sanded and refinished the wood, burnished the aluminum base, and recovered all three cushions. I used a beautiful classic black leather from Kyson - I have plenty left over for the armrests. I used a bookbinding trick when making the welts - rather than sewing I brushed some PVA onto the leather and folded it over the cord. Holds perfectly. Boston has a great shop called Windsor Button, so i was able to find some black leather buttons for about $.40/each. A light scrubbing with 000 steel wool brought them to the same amount of shine as the leather.
The biggest problems I've had so far are that the foam padding didnt always cover the edge of the inner shell - which I can tell is going to cause some wear...but its only in two low traffic spots. The main kicker was trying to fit the inner shells back into the outer frame - without any of the staples showing. Seat and backrest went in fine - but the triple layer of leather (upholstery and welting) were giving me a LOT of problems with the headrest. I got it to fit adequately but I ended up coloring all of the staples with a black sharpie just in case they peek out.
Now, as you'll see in the photo I'm not QUITE done with it yet. My friends have taken to calling it the Tuxedo Edition. Maybe I should put it on ebay as that? With a note that says " do you want YOUR chair to really stand out?" LOL. Ps. Sorry about the crappy cell phone photo - my digital cam is out of service at present.
I need to wait to get the arms redone - I just bought two FLAWLESS orange shells (never been in circulation) so I'm a little short on cash at the moment.
http://flickr.com/photos/38178174@N00/
Ooh, nice job!
Looks great! You are wise to leave the armrests on for now, even if they don't match--the metal plates under them are sharp and hard and not good to lean on or bump into.
I had a lot of trouble getting one or two of the inner shells in my chairs back into place, too. I think the plywood might relax a bit on top of the bulk of the new welt and leather. I figured that as long as the parts that showed were all lined up ok, it wouldn't matter so much if staples were visible along bottom edges. I used a screwdriver in some places to force the edges of the welt down flat. They tended to bunch up when I would slide the inner shells into place. Lots of wrestling going on.
I never thought to look for ready-made buttons, though it probably would only work with black. The first chair I did was black leather and I ended up using black kid from some old gloves, which worked well but faded over time. Thank goodness for shoe dye. The other three have been various shades of dark brown that would probably be hard to match up.
The foam in these old chairs does deterioate and get more compressed over time. Plus they weren't that meticulous about cutting it to fit. Every one that I've redone had a single piece of foam on top covering blocks of various sizes that were just kind of layered underneath with lots of gaps. The seat foam has all been too far gone to keep so I replaced it in each chair with a single slab of 4- or 5-inch thick foam that I carve up to fit the curves. It's tedious but worth it.
I see you cut the backrest down in height---looks much better!
I own retro redo and we...
I own retro redo and we love to redo the lounge chairs. At one time there were over 20 differnt companies makeing the chair the big three were
Selig plycraft and Hermna Miller
Miller the first with Eames chair in 56. Selig was making furniture in Denmark and opened ther factory in Mass. in 59.
Ply craft had been maing furniture and they started making the chair in the 60's all different not trying to interfear with Hermna Millers trade dress. selig had falat arms plycraft had wrapped arms .
Miller was always Seemless on the sides and used clips the other two had screws .the Miller chair has a 10 degree tilt (Eames was very Zen like and wanted that way the chair does not rock . The Selig re stuffed after 40 years really is more confortable cause of the rocking base and the chair hits the top of your head instead of under the chair.
http://www.retro redo.com
If you need any help, please contact us at – info@designaddict.com