Craftsmanship in Wood

Purchased this table and was wondering if people had any comments? Several of the 8 chairs will require fixing and one I pulled apart already .

One more photo of a construction detail

Certainly looks interesting John.

Could you show some more photos of the joinery details of the chair that you have disassembled?

Derek

Will post up a few shots tonight Derek. All m&t joinery in solid wood. It was purchased in Richmond BC so was thinking that the table originated in China as Richmond has a large Asian community.
Lots of work went into the chairs for sure and they will all need tightening up. Trying to put together a plan for that.

So here is the beginning of the front leg assembly. It shows the joinery, the insertion and the finish joint.
Also the pics are not in order it would seem. Strange that. Will have to work on it.

john verge wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 27, 2017 8:01 pm

So here is the beginning of the front leg assembly. It shows the joinery, the insertion and the finish joint.

These photos really do bring to mind prior discussion by Chris and others here re: perception of joinery. I realize that, considering just the assembly shown instead of the whole piece, my knee-jerk instinct of "omg, terrible weak commercial miter joint" was triggered. But obviously, that's not the reality inside this joint.

Perception is a funny thing. I did a bit of work back in grad school with Cort Lippe in the Hiller Computer Music Studios. Cort is a pioneer in composing interactive computer music pieces, where the computer "part" of the composition interactively extends the capabilities of live performer(s) playing traditional acoustic instruments, e.g. violin, flute, etc. He related a tale on this point that's stuck with me: after a performance of one of his "tape pieces", several people in the audience knowing of his work commended him on how interactive the piece was. Well, a "tape piece" is entirely prerecorded; the performer rehearses and plays with a recording! Similarly, some of his most vibrantly interactive pieces (from the performer's perspective) came across to the audience as being very monolithic, no perceived "interplay" at all. This dichotomy of performer vs. audience perspective has a certain similarity in the hidden vs. exposed joinery discussion.

Thanks for taking the time to write John and offer that unique perspective. When I disassembled the chair I was happy to see the joinery inside. However the joinery will make it tough to repair as some joints have loosened and others remain tight. Also there is a key piece to the whole works which I failed to see and blew it apart .
Will post a few more photos and hopefully some keen eyes will see things not clear to me. Pretty cool to see it's been hand built though. Really makes me want to continue on with the repairs.

Question. The back curved support has a tenon on top and it is tennoned into the seat . The joint where the back support meets the chair is a bit loose but won't come apart. Is there a way to safely do this without ruining any of the structure ?
When regluing the joints is there a preferred glue to be used? Thanks for any info.
Also, that plastic bag houses a shard of wood from the chair which was created when I blew apart the key piece. A serious impetuous move and stupid too

This looks like a pretty good set, being accurately made.

I wonder if they used hide glue on the joints? If they did, of course re-gluing would be very easy.

Not sure on the hide glue. The tenons seem pretty glue-less actually. Good to hear re-gluing will be easy. Can you recommend a glue type Brian?