Jacobsen Swan chair. Is satisfactory repair possible?  

i wish i did know a ...
i wish i did know a good guy over in England to do that kinda work check first with the shop that does fiberglass auto work, and once you get that fixed you will find some one to upholster the chair,

Ouch...
A rare chair...
Ouch...
A rare chair broke at the weakest spot... It happened to a friends here. Its just like a surf board in that area. You will need fiberglass resin and matte to get the repair done. It should be taken out of service right now before you hurt it further. Get the cover off and get it redone.

In this day and age.....
Finding an upholsterer in your city shouldn't be any more difficult than finding a good Dentist.
Ask around....go to the best antique shops in town and ask who they'd bring a piece to..... It's best (of course) to find an upholsterer who specializes in MCM furniture, but I believe that if your town doesn't have one, a good professional upholsterer should be able to determine how to fix your piece - especially if you have pictures of how it should look.
When I started to buy MCM furniture for my new (old) house, I asked a couple of MCM stores in town and alll of them directed me to a particular upholsterer here in town.
Hope this helps...

the hardest thing to upho...
the hardest thing to upholster in MCM furniture is Womb chairs, swan chairs, Egg chairs, coconut chair, and the Eames Arm shells, we have done them all.
any thing else i feel any competent upholster should be able to do, and when i get many calls which i am thankful for each call. I try to save them money on shipping, ahd tell them to use a local guy but we have done the day beds by Nelson, Knoll, and others, the Sherrif chair can be difficult as can the cone chairs

LRF...why is it hard?
the hardest thing to upholster in MCM furniture is Womb chairs, swan chairs, Egg chairs, coconut chair, and the Eames Arm shells, we have done them all.
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LRF: I have heard that the Egg chair is especially problematic since it's difficult to get the fabric to stay adherred to the back of the chair. I guess the same might go for the Coconut chair (although my late friend had an original one with orange vinyl. The vinyl was torn on the inside along one of the seams, but the remainder of the vinyl was well attached to the curve.
Why would the Swan be just as difficult? I thought that the fabric was not actually glued to the form....I thought that there was foam or padding from and back. (I could be wrong, of course.)
I am interested in why the Womb would be difficult.
Barry

barry
barry
all of the chairs with the exception of the shell chairs and the coconut must be hand sewn and glued to the foam
The coconut takes a lot of time cause you just have to start from the beginning on that one and use almost 200.00 worth of foam and make a cover and make it fit tight with glue,
If you make a mistake you must peal it off and start over some times you can save the fabric sometimes it is trashed, If you do not use a heaviy enough fabric, the glue bleeds right through and it is trashed that happened on my egg chair I chose a
a great looking knoll fabric and it was to thin , I went to messenger Maharam and it was fine as it was thick enough, The womb is just as difficult as the process is the same, On the womb a lot of the cushions are missing for some reason and we had to create our own pattern for them as they are no more than a ordinary small pillow,
The shell chairs after doing almost 200, we have that down to a science, ( The science of armshells not offered at College) you must grind out all of the old foam and then sculpt it back, glue it on and put a crimp cord on ,
I have no idea why no shops want to have any thing to do with them but for some reason we have been blessed in that department as it seems every one sends us that one chair to do, and they are my favorite, every time I see one of the guy s working on one , I love it as it seems someone wants to preserve the heritage of that chair. enclosed are two of three chairs that we redid last week....
the owner sold me one ... YEA

I guess was lucky with the Grasshopper, then
Other than the structual repair on the inside right frame, my friend, David at Remnants didn't have much trouble doing my Grasshopper Chair and Ottoman, although he did have to sacrifice the nude silk fabric (which wasn't original, anyhow).
At that time, I was seriously considering going after a apparently petrified Womb Chair and Ottoman instead on eBay.... glad I didn't!
Have you ever tackled a George Nelson 1946 setee or a Saarinen Womb Setee?

No I have never had any o...
No I have never had any of those chairs,

To LRF
Hello LRF and everyone else on the board,
I'm currently having a 1965 Egg chair re-upholstered, upon stripping the chair, my upholster informed me that at least part of the chair is constructed with styrofoam- not fiberglass. Have you experienced this before?
Perhaps this has been discussed in another thread previously, if so, would someone kindly let me know? Thank you!

Light.Folio
The entire shell of swan and egg chairs is made of foam, not fiberglass. That is why the egg chair is so light for its size.

Thank you Pegboard Modern
Thank you for the information! I might post some pictures later and shared the information when the chair is fixed/re-upholstered. (I was informed that after stripping the chair, the foam structure needs to be fixed and repaired) Seriously crossing my fingers as I don't know how it's going to turn out.

pulling naugahyde
Is there any way to re-attach naugahyde that is pulling away from the back of an eames shell chair?