Grete Jalk Lounge Chair (France and Son) - Replacement Leg Fixings Needed  

Interesting: I've never seen that hardware before. I had the same sofa and it was assembled with a cap screw through the leg.

I think you might need to have new hardware custom fabricated. It also might make sense to convert the threaded end that screws into the leg from a wood thread to a machine thread so that the shank is thicker and distributes the strain into more of the wood. (You also have the question of how to remove the broken off bolt from in the leg).

Thanks Leif

I expect you might be right. Custom fabrication might be the outcome, but I thought I'd see if this hardware is available.

I have a few of these chairs, some of them have the cap screw as you described and the others have this piece. For further clarity. The part has an M6 machine thread, which screws into an M6 brass wood insert in the leg, which distributes the load into the wood. another image attached, showing the insert.

I have removed the brass wood insert complete with the broken bolt, and I have sourced replacements for the brass wood insert. Just now need to find (or have made) the broken part.

Nice. I thought I was seeing the ends of wood screw thread where it broke. Good to know I am wrong.

The M6 thread makes me think that maybe these are later? Like late 60s or early 70s. Cadovius era. What are the markings?

My current Jalk/France sofa has cap screws and I am reasonably confident it is from 1964 give or take a year.

Including the ones in parts, I have a total of 7 Grete Jalk chairs of varying sorts.

6 of them (all Teak) have the France and Son medallion inlay. (all silver coloured, except for one chair that has both black and silver coloured medallions, inlayed in the rear rail)

The 7th is a rosewood 3 seater which has the CADO medallion.

2 of the 7 have the Cap screws fixing the leg to the front rail and these are both France and Son made chairs and includes the chair with 2 inlays: both the black and the silver coloured France and Son medallions. I imagine it could have been made at or around the time the the silver inlay was first introduced.

The remaining 5 including the CADO sofa all have the special concealed fixing hardware on the front leg.

So based on the very small sample at my place, I would guess the Cap screw to be the earlier design and the concealed fixing to have made an appearance sometime after the silver France and Son logo was adopted and continued into the Cadovius era?

Well, we know that the Cado marked one is from the 70s, and it has this unique hardware, therefore, yes, this unique hardware is later. Interesting.

I like how it eliminates the visible cap screw.

Hi, sorry to resurrect this post. DWS, do you maybe have pictures to show me how the springs are inserted into the wood frame of the seat of this chair? I cannot find anything online.

Thank you for your help!

Ernest

not sure if images below are helpful... but they show how the spring seat fits into the teak frame. The sprung seat is covered so I can see exactly what inside...Going by feel, there is a timber frame around the perimeter and the springs are anchored into that. Sketch of what seems to be going on attached.

David

The springs do not wrap around the outside edges of the frame, but otherwise that sketch is accurate, and very impressive.

In one of the photos you can see the ridges in the fabric created by the eeeee springs underneath. I count at least 15, but there may be more....

Hi ! Thank you for the sketch, and for the pictures, I really appreciate. I am confused because I have seen other pictures online where the position of the eeee springs can be also guessed from the shape of the cover, and I always count 6 springs, and not 15. Also, in a Ole Wansher chair also made by France and Sons, I also count 6 (see picture).

I will try to dismount the frame I have at home tonight, and see how many holes there are, but I sure the number will be around 6, as I could feel them while going inside the frame with my finger. Unless the frame is not original, but at this point it would be good to know why these holes are there if anyway they have used jute to make the seat.

Thank you for your patience and support!

Ernest

That senator chair definitely shows fewer springs.

It is possible that there are different versions of the seat frame. There are actually at least 3 major versions of this design. The earliest was model 118 and it had an experspring backrest. Then there was a version with a narrow wood slatted backrest. Then they renamed it model 128 and gave it a wide slat backrest, and changed a few other minor things. I would not be terribly surprised if some version of 118 has an experspring seat frame. 128 definitely has eeeee spring. Also the number of springs may have changed over time.

If you pull the staples on the fabric coverlet and remove the jute, it will be obvious which kind of spring and how many.

I think that senator chair has experspring. That looks like the right spacing for loops of experspring.

I checked Lauritz. Model 118 does have exspring seat foundations. Model 128 (

Were expersprings ever attached to the top of a seat frame, though? I've only ever seen them set into a routed groove in the frame so that they were flush with the surface of the frame. On that chair they bump up higher than the surface.

You mean on the Senator picture above in this thread?

I believe the the fabric has just sagged around them in that photo, especially since it gets stretched from the sitter's weight. You don't see them through the fabric where they are routed into the frame since there is no space for the fabric to sag into.