Take a Seat

As I said, last weekend I demonstrated at Maple Meadow Farms in Mapleton.  The weather Saturday was horrible, rain and cold, but Sunday turned out alright.  Erinn is here enjoying a tractor ride.  Now those things have some comfortable seats.

 Speaking of which, the quest for the comfortable seat continues.  Here's a pic of a sack-back seat that by all right should not be comfortable.  The deepest part is too far back, only about 4 1/2 in. from the back edge.  The prevailing wisdom is the the deepest part should be 6 1/2 in.  from the back edge,  and spread out 3 1/2 in. across the middle.  In other words, you measure in 6 1/2 from the back edge,  and then drill a hole about 15/16 in. deep, 1 3/4 in. from either side of the center line.  That marks the deepest part of the "bowl".

 But here you can see the deepest part is two inches to far back, around 4 1/2 in. .  And it's deep too, about 1 3/8 in.  Not really sure what happened here, but there it is.  The funny thing is it is very comfortable.  It supports your back and bottom, and everyone who sits in it says oh, that's nice.
That's the thing about chairs, you just never know how they are going to sit until they are done, which can be very exciting or a disappointing letdown.

 Below you can see the whole seat.  The flanks are cut down so they don't dig into the backs of your legs.

 Above you can see a Rod Back chair.  They were first introduced about 1880 in Philadelphia and were quickly accepted as less expensive seating.  The bamboo turnings were in response to the public interest in the Orient.  On later rod backs, the top back was a flat board on which decorative painting was done to add visual interest.  All of this was due to the rising popularity of Sheraton "fancy" chairs.  Ahh, economic pressure.  The Rodback unfortunately marked the end of 150 years of what had been primarily hand built chairs.  Most later rod backs were factory made, and one can see shortcuts that were taken.  For instance, on most the legs did not go thru the seat, they merely went into machine drilled holes that stopped short of the top.  In many ways this marked the beginning of the decline of the Windsor as a chair.

At any rate, here's a small green rodback with another very comfortable seat.  The deep part is right about 6 1/2 in., so that's "right",  and the deepest part is about 1 in., which is deep for a rod back.  They typically had very shallow scooping to cut costs and time.  But this one very comfortable.  One school of thought is that a deep seat feels great initially, but the longer you sit the more uncomfortable it becomes.  I not sure I buy into this, think tractor seats.  I find a deepish seat, about 1 inch just about right.

 Here's a good look at how deep and wide the scooping is and this chair is comfy!

This pic shows another seat that is not as comfortable as the green one, but is still comfortable.  The deepest part is about 5 in. from the back edge, and about as deep, but it just doesn't sit as well.  One thing is the scooping is flatter from front to back, maybe that has something to do with it. 

 Here's the latest seat, legged up and seat done.  This one is pretty much by the book, deep part about an inch deep, is 6 3/4 from the back,  and the bowl all runs to the deep part.  You can see I use a marble to find the deepest part, my daughters idea.   I'll have to get back to you on how it sits.  I did drop the front arris down about 3/16 of an inch so as to give legs more room.

 I am happy with the edge treatment on this seat.  I cut the bottom back to give the seat a sharp edge which I like,  and the cove on the side came out nice.  Practice makes perfect I guess.

 So in summary, deep part 6 1/2 in.  from the back edge, 1 inch deep, 3 1/2 in. apart, sort of.

Couple shots of the show, nice barn!  The owner asked me when I was getting my stuff out, and I said out, I'm moving in!  Thanks to Andrea, Miriam and Terry Gregg for having me and thanks to all the people who stopped by my booth.