Early Access Video: Studying a Greenwood Chair
Added 2021-09-04 11:01:00 +0000 UTCFriends:
Furniture Forensics returns!! I've been dying to do more of these analysis videos, but Covid made it really hard to get out and find new pieces to look at.
Well, trust in the trash and it will provide. Just last week, one of my neighbors put out this AMAZING old post-and-rung chair. I know it doesn't look like much. I know I seem a little crazy for being this excited.
Just wait until you see the video. There's a lot hiding in this piece of "junk".
Trust me.
--Rex
Comments
Yeah, but now you know how to easily spot a real on. That's valuable and took me quite a while.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-17 20:33:52 +0000 UTCAfter watching this video. one Week Later in my area in upstate new york. just down the street from me. a neighbor was throwing out a chair similar to the one on the video. i brought it home and played the video again, to see if this chair is an original or a reproduction. Sadly it was a reproduction. it had glue and brad nails, with the mortise and tenons. plus it had a small gold oval shape sticker that states - made in china. over all, it's a great video. quite informative.
thomas vecchio
2021-09-16 04:24:23 +0000 UTCAnother great video. We have similar chairs here in Louisiana. I remember sitting on similar chairs at my grandmother and uncles homes. They would typically use leather seats or wood slats for the seat. We spent hours and hours sitting on the porch and leaning back on two legs while watching the neighborhood around us.
Skully Wood and Metal
2021-09-06 18:55:46 +0000 UTCThese chairs are a product of an apprentice education system. The maker learned the craft of making these chairs over over a period of years under the supervision of an elder maker possibly a relative or neighbor. The advent of mass production generally improved everyone’s life but it took away the specialness of handcrafted everyday objects. What I like about your videos is you and the other YouTubers are helping us recover that special quality.
Richard C von Brecht
2021-09-06 03:00:27 +0000 UTCThanks Tsani!
Pete seddon
2021-09-06 02:17:42 +0000 UTCFunny thing. I watched this video yesterday and today I found the same type of chairs on our towns Facebook yardsale.
Ellen Sloan
2021-09-06 01:23:29 +0000 UTCWe'll find out!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:18:14 +0000 UTCI don't know!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:17:39 +0000 UTCPeople keep mentioning that movie to me. I'm gonna have to just watch it.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:17:29 +0000 UTCThis one is a "setting" (sitting) chair rather than a standard side chair. It's made for lounging around, not for the table.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:16:57 +0000 UTCThat's VERY nice to hear!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:15:57 +0000 UTCThe original is rotted past saving. It will have to be a guide to future chairs instead.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:15:39 +0000 UTCI'm glad you think so!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:14:22 +0000 UTCI was shocked. Really.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:14:11 +0000 UTCIt's hard to stay skeptical. Those old boys did an awful lot with next to nothing. It's difficult to keep from being impressed.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:14:01 +0000 UTCMe too!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:13:07 +0000 UTCWill do!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:13:00 +0000 UTCAll my heroes are known. Their names lost to history.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:12:53 +0000 UTCThat "sheet" is a real photo backdrop....but it really does just look like a sheet, doesn't it?
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:12:17 +0000 UTCIt's my pleasure!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:11:29 +0000 UTCThank you1
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:11:19 +0000 UTCTsani has is exactly. We still don't know what's wrong with the Ron video (but not for lack of trying to figure it out.)
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:11:10 +0000 UTCI'm afraid this one is too far gone to restore, but it's a perfect blueprint for the new one.
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:10:33 +0000 UTCMe too.....
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:09:52 +0000 UTCNo one was more surprised than me when it held, but I thought, "If it does break, that will be a hilarious piece of footage, so win-win."
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:09:39 +0000 UTCOh, that's VERY nice to hear!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:08:43 +0000 UTCThank you!
Rex Krueger
2021-09-05 15:08:29 +0000 UTCIs it safe to lean back on this chair? Isn't it going to tip over with its back legs so close to the center of gravity of the person sitting?
stlmch
2021-09-05 14:37:14 +0000 UTCGreat video. Looking forward to the videos and posts of you duplicating the chair. Just one question remains - what happened to your arm?
Kirk von der Heydt
2021-09-05 13:15:35 +0000 UTCHey, Pete! You don't need to watch them live at all. They're offered through YouTube live, and get published as is on YouTube afterwards. Much like Wood by Wright's lives. There was a bit of a bug with the one on metallurgy featuring Ron Hock. You have to open it to YouTube as it won't play on other pages that aren't YouTube.
Tsani Rósenov Sábev
2021-09-05 12:18:39 +0000 UTClol, when you showed the Winsor-style chair I laughed combined with when you sat in the chair i had a Flashback to the movie patriot when Mel Gibson's character was made and sat in a homemade Winsor-style chair and it broke. and later when he sits in a different one and looks to see how that one was made differently.
android888
2021-09-05 05:38:38 +0000 UTCThanks Rex, My wife wanted ladder back chairs. After several months of looking I finally found a set of 6 matching chairs. I think the craftsman making these may have also made slight changes from set to set because living in northeast Ohio where these were made I couldn't find 2 partial sets that matched. Alot of listing I looked extremely similar but none identical. So hopefully with your expert tutelage I'll be able to make 2 copies of the ones I purchased. One note on the design that you might have noticed when you sat in that chairs, the seats are slightly shorter then other chairs. My wife is 4'11" and can sit on it and her feet don't dangle above the floor like with other chairs (short people problems) and yet at almost 6' the way the chair forces me to sit I'm very comfortable in it. Can't wait for build.
MyEvilBanana
2021-09-05 01:13:42 +0000 UTCThanks so much, Rex. This kind of video just draws me in. Just to imagine that people possessed that level of understanding of how wood behaves and interacts with other species is just fantastic. Especially excited by the prospect of creating a copy. As always, you're stuff is why I get stoked to open my email on Saturdays.
Sean McGown
2021-09-04 23:36:03 +0000 UTCAs always Rex your videos make my Sunday morning that bit brighter and this one is outstanding. Draping the wall to highlight the subject just works so well and you ability to deliver content is always enjoyable. Well done sir, looking forward the chair build, will the original get some paint and a seat also at some point?
Wayne
2021-09-04 22:43:26 +0000 UTCAmazing
Lubos Tomicek
2021-09-04 21:22:23 +0000 UTCThose joints. Great googlymooglies. Brilliant.
Joel D Canfield
2021-09-04 20:15:45 +0000 UTCPre-watching the video: "I dunno, Rex, I'm not much into green woodworking, it seems like a lot of fuss. But furniture forensics is always fun! I found myself at an antique store taking pictures to look at ideas." Five minutes into the video: *Rapt attention.* Rex slaps a board across the chair: *On the edge of my own chair* Video ends: "ME TOO! I WANNA DO THIS TOO!" Hoo boy, I've been bitten bad, haven't I?
Mark Zaugg
2021-09-04 15:57:53 +0000 UTCReally enjoyed this, Rex. Thanks for the detailed investigation on this chair. I look forward to seeing you create one.
Sean O'Neill
2021-09-04 15:46:17 +0000 UTCExcellent Rex, more please.
Gareth McMahon
2021-09-04 14:54:50 +0000 UTCThanks for the masterclass autopsy of this wonderfully simple, yet masterfully crafted chair. You've shown us once again how attention to detail is so crucial, and how back country craftsmen belong on the same list as more well known furniture makers.
Dick Wright
2021-09-04 14:28:57 +0000 UTCAs a fellow former educator, I can tell that you are an educated person who loves to broaden your scope of knowledge. You share with people what you have learned in a way that is entertaining and understandable. Any university or school would consider you a valuable asset. I feel privileged to be a patron. In fact, your channel is the only one that I belong to. I encourage you to continue with what you are doing. It is a valuable thing and an inspiration. Coupling that with the work bench series, you offer what no other person has done. Thank you very much Rex. (Nice sheet!)
John Hiemstra
2021-09-04 13:51:54 +0000 UTCVery, very interesting! We learn so much! Thank you!
Thomas Hverring
2021-09-04 13:32:45 +0000 UTCLike riding a time machine, with an experienced guide. Nice work indeed, Rex.
Dean Wight
2021-09-04 13:31:08 +0000 UTCAlso, do the workbench series videos need to be watched live? I never got an alert to the one on metallurgy, and would have liked to see that. I did see the one with Shannon Rogers, but it was not live (that I recall).
Pete seddon
2021-09-04 13:09:47 +0000 UTCThe forensic analysis is very interesting, as well as revealing. Would you consider restoring it along side a newly made copy?
Pete seddon
2021-09-04 13:07:05 +0000 UTCThat's what I thought too when Rex sat on the chair. The woven seat helps tremendously to spread out the weight evenly and thereby limiting the stress put on every single component. Therefore, I was even more surprised when the chair could bare the weight without it being distributed evenly/ properly.
Hagen
2021-09-04 13:04:45 +0000 UTCLooking forward to seeing you copy this and what is involved in the makings
Karl Weuste
2021-09-04 12:54:32 +0000 UTCYour forensic videos are my favorites! Simple furniture made by highly skilled but perhaps uneducated people. Their knowledge of their materials is impressive. (And the imitators' work went into the woodstove long ago.) One aspect of these chairs that you really didn't touch on is that the woven seat contributes immensely to the strength of the system. More than just binding it together, the sitter's weight on the seat tends to pull the seat rungs together. I was a bit nervous when you sat on the chair, because the improvised board seat did not provide this strengthening action.
Brian Taylor
2021-09-04 12:21:27 +0000 UTCSeconded!
Kit Joyce
2021-09-04 11:49:35 +0000 UTCThanks Rex, that was fascinating and eye-opening! So many important details that add up to such remarkable quality and longevity. An almost perfect combination of mastery and humility. This may be my favourite video of yours yet.
Kit Joyce
2021-09-04 11:48:17 +0000 UTCThis is your most inspiring video to date as far as I'm concerned. What an amazing piece of furniture. What insights into the craft and a time long gone!
Tsani Rósenov Sábev
2021-09-04 11:25:53 +0000 UTC
