My First Chair - In Three Days

Dear Internet,

It's hard to believe that in all my years in ID that I've never built a chair. I've drawn tons of them, but never managed to fully realize one. The chair- the archetypal design object- somehow never made it into my to do list. Probably because I wasn't confident in my ability to make something that wouldn't fall over and injure my friends.

The project just came up as an ad hoc thing- we need a shop chair. I took a quick break from the bed project and decided to do something fun. The picture that came into my mind was a bent pipe structure with a wood seat- and then I set myself a challenge- design a chair built out of a single 10-foot length of electrical conduit. Cost: $1.80.

I did some sketching, but learned most of what I wanted from these prototypes, which were made from a single piece of wire, 10 inches long and some bass wood.






The difficulty I reached was that I needed a seat height of at least 24 inches, because while standard table height is 30", standard work counter height is 36" for easy access while standing. So the seat height for a chair for counters is 24" tall instead of the standard 16-18". With the minimum two legs for a chair this took nearly half of my entire 10-foot length, and not provide much structure. I settled on a design I liked, bought some conduit, and set to bending it.





Bending pipe is hard, and bending specific angles with a pipe bender is nigh impossible for a novice. Then, these bends become the weak points in the structure and collapse with maybe 20 pounds of force, not enough to hold even a small child. So, after ruining 20 feet of electrical conduit, I abandoned the challenge.

The next incarnation I would do with pipe fittings, where the joints are actually the strong points in an angle, and hope that would solve accuracy and structure problems. Home Despot doesn't sell steel pipe in any useful amount, so I visited an old friend, copper pipe. My altered ikea futon ran on copper pipe, and have always liked the way it looks with light wood. My design had to be altered because the store only has 90 and 45 degree pipe fittings. I put it together with some JB weld, and got this neat shape. Remind anyone of certain Reitveld chair?














This version was also to weak to hold me, and the joints twisted some in place. Back to the hardware store, for more pipe fittings and a special copper glue emblazoned with the warning SEVERE SKIN IRRITANT. That's how you know it's good. At Martin's advice I added two supports going from directly under the seat to the footrest, crossing the original supports. That did the trick, and also added to the aesthetic of the chair- it's now my favorite part.





I had a bunch of friends over for dinner and the chair was given a lot of attention and praise. The chair does feel like it's tilting you slightly forward if you put your feet on the floor, but if you're working at a counter, it's not at problem, even an advantage. But for sitting in the middle of a room with a plate in your lap trying to eat chicken wings, not so much.

The chair now resides in the shop and must endure the final test- the endurance one.