Hi all! I'm new here so please let me introduce myself. My name is Yannick, from the Netherlands and love collecting and restoring design objects. In the future I hope to share more projects and exchange ideas regarding repairs, however for now I am in need of advice - or maybe rather motivation - with my current project, namely restoring a delaminating Lamino chair.
The Lamino chair is one of my favourite Scandinavian chair designs and was thrilled to have found one with an ottoman for less than €500 last year. A pretty good deal was my thought! The backrests were uneven, though, and I knew I would have to fix it before I could even use it. Here are some pictures from when I got it:
Currently I think it's already over a year ago when I bought the set, and since then I've removed the upholstery and disassembled all the parts.
I've glued up the delaminated parts with a syringe and clamped it up. Also I put the sagged parts in a lashing strap to keep it in the right form. After that I started sanding the old finish down as there were some water stains on the armrests and other spots. Then I put it in a garage but found out it was too moist in there and the parts delaminated in other places again.
I decided to take all parts indoors again and let everything acclimate for a couple of weeks and glued everything back again after waiting. Now everything was done, or so I thought. I put some tension on the separate parts -as I'm a bit scared of re-upholstering it and hearing cracking sounds as soon as I sit down for the first time... 😆 - but they split again in different places. Now I'm hesitant to move further. Will the old glue continue to just fail after I have glued up old failures?
Does anyone have any advise how to tackle this project further? I don't want to continue glueing up and eventually re-upholster it to just fail again.
@jongejan88, Welcome to DA Forum.
There are so many elements that can effect durability and longevity of bent-laminated wood furniture that it's impossible to speculate what's gone wrong with your chair. Misuse, exposure to environmental extremes, a bad batch of glue, or combinations of such would rank near the top of the list, imo. Noticeable in at least one of your photos are fractures running diagonally and perpendicular to the grain direction in some individual wood laminations as well as separations parallel and adjacent to glue lines. Also apparent are gray-ish areas that suggest possible fungal growth which can weaken the internal cellular structure of wood if active for prolonged periods.
None of this is of particular use, I know, and I've avoided responding here until now mostly because I've felt your pain. An art school painting instructor once told me, "A crucial component of genius is knowing when to stop." A lesson I occasionally forget.
@jongejan88 You could also make it a lifelong project. If you manage to delaminate and reglue every piece of bentwood at every crucial curve by continuous gluing and putting pressure on it, you may eventually get to a good result.
"People buy a chair, and they don't really care who designed it." (Arne Jacobsen)
That's actually what I decided to do! after every glue up I put pressure on the separate parts and when the glue fails elsewhere I glue it up again. It's a very time consuming endeavour, but I hope to finish before April, when I move into my new home:-)
I'm just not sure when it's stable enough haha. I keep increasing the pressure until it fails somewhere, but the parts on their own will probably never have to deal with that amount of stress with normal use. I just don't want to get it reupholstered only to hear a cracking sound as soon as I sit down haha!
Can I ask the type of glue you are using? There are several types of spirit based penetrating glues that you can buy that keep expanding into any gap, Ive done a couple of chairs with laminations like this Fred Lowen Tessa Stockholm chairs and a Falcon chair leg.
If the shape has changed over time from being delaminated you may need to make up a shaped clamping frame then clamp to that to maintain the original shape. Note the expanding glues I've used are very strong but they make hell of a mess so best to have the pieces are separated from upholstered parts.
you have to give each area good work over and flex to make sure you don't miss any potential weak points.
best of luck. Dave
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