Dining tbl & chair construction – Dinec
A while ago there was a discussion about contemporary furniture. Specifically, dining tables and chairs. Somebody recommended Dinec and another manufacturer that I cannot recall.
One of the comments and concern that somebody made about Dinec chairs was the lack of cross supports (not sure of the correct term) between the chair legs. One way to describe is to picture just four lonely legs, seat and back. The concern was about the strength of the legs.
Well, this past weekend we stopped by a contemporary furniture store (Abizaks) in Rehoboth, Delaware. They had a full display of Dinec furniture. I examined the chairs and noticed that under the seat, inside the seat frame, the top of each leg had a triangular shaped corner brace like every other chair but on the Dinec chairs this corner brace is glued and finger jointed to the inside of the seat frame. If I recall correctly, this was in addition to a screw.
I sat on the chair and leaned on it at different angles and it does seemed a little bit more flexible but overall it felt pretty stiff.
Has anybody seen this type of chair construction before? I just wonder if the life span of these chairs is shorten by the lack of lateral/cross support.
Any opinios, comments. Thanks!
Eug
Replies
Eug,
I think the word you were looking for was 'stretcher'. The stretcher connects the legs to each other below the seat.
It sounds like the joint construction you described in the seat may be stronger than usual. However, that will not, in itself, lengthen the life of the chair appreciably. It may however help the chair resist breaking when you lean to the side to pick up a dropped knife off the floor, or when you try to move the chair sideways with out lifting off the ground and it catches on the carpeting. If I don't have a stretcher on a chair, I look for an apron that is at least 1.5 times the thickness of the leg. But even that is suspect. Good luck
The corner blocks you mention reinforce the seat but do nothing to increase the strength of the "rail to back" or "rail to front leg" joinery.
The primary and most destructive forces stressing these joints ensue when someone leans back in the chair so that the front legs are off the ground. With the weight distributed on the seat, the rail will seek to rotate downward. What happens is that over time the stresses will break the glue bond within the joint and the joint will become loose; unless, of course, the weight is sufficient so that a catastophic failure of the wood occurs such that a visible and permanent break/crack results.
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