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Project Information

A set of 15 dining side chairs in Sapele and ebony with nickel silver pins. These chairs are based on a Greene & Greene design for the Gamble House in Pasadena, as adapted by Darrell Peart and Bob Lang. The leather slip seats were covered by a local upholsterer, Jet Upholstery, who did an excellent job capturing the original Greene & Greene look. This set of chairs took me a little over a year to build. The finish is water borne dye stain topped with water borne lacquer.

Here are the project totals, for those that are interested.

Board feet of Sapele used: 315
4' x 8' sheets of 3/4" baltic birch plywood: 2
Number of chair parts fabricated: 285
Number of mortises: 720
Number of floating tenons: 360
Number of square ebony plugs: 405
Number of ebony splines: 120
Quarts of finish used: 10
Hours to complete: 596

You can see all of the details of the build in my blog posts.

Thanks for looking!

Gallery

Comments

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Wow! That's a large project in repeating the same perfect pattern over and over again. Did they turn out as consistent from one chair to the next as you hoped for?

Beautiful chairs and love the Sapele. Are you ready for another 596 hour project?
 

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Absolutely gorgeous G&G dining room chairs to go with the equally impressive G&G table. In addition, your blog series on both the table and chairs provide excellent reference material for anyone wanting to make G&G furniture.

Looking forward to reading a blog on a G&G sideboard (??).
 

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I watched your blog on both the chairs and the table. Amazing work for sure. Thanks for sharing. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
 

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Fantastic. The chairs look great with the Thorsen table. Beautiful work…
 

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Beautiful G&G Chairs, well done!
I did check in on your blog progress.
 

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Absolutely stunning. These are some of the most beautiful dining chairs I have ever seen. You sir are a master!
 

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Wow! Fantastic and all of the accolades expressed before! Just really beautiful and professional looking work. The uniformity of the finish is amazing too. I started following your blog, but life got in the way. I'm going back to read the rest.
 

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Congrats on completed such an impressive project! Can't wait to see what comes next :)
 

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having followed the blog it's nice to now admire the incredible job you did on these chairs over the course of many months.i think the greene brothers would be quite amazed at the quality and level of work you did,and probably offer you a job! so whats next tung-LOL.
 

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Those chairs are spectacular looking. Congrats on your DT3 you certainly deserve it. seeing your table and chairs and the sleigh bed, I guess your wife doesn't ask for anything like a bird house or something simple. You have made some beautiful furniture.
 

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Very nice. I just went to the Gamble house a couple months ago. Those do look very similar to some of the various chairs in the house, nice work!
 

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Chairs baffle me with all the angles, you took it to the next level and excelled!

(Patiently waiting for your next adventure 8^)
 

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Thanks everyone for the kind words. This was a fun and very challenging project for me, having never made a chair before. Much credit goes to Bob Lang (and by extension, Darrell Peart) for teaching the Gamble House Side chair class at MASW at just the right time.

To answer some of the questions-

1) Jamie- they came out pretty consistent. All the parts were pattern routed and cut at he same time as a batch, so they are pretty much identical except for some slight glue-up inconsistencies. I'll be starting the design work on the next project shortly. I don't expect it to be another 600 hour marathon but it won't be trivial either.

2) Earl & pottz & splinter- yes the Thorsen sideboard is next in the queue….after a short break to teach my youngest son how to make pens. As luck would have it, MASW is coming through again, this summer Reid Anderson is teaching a bolection inlay class- exactly what I need for the Thorsen sideboard doors!

3) assum- no, SWMBO does not ask for anything easy. The sleigh bed was her wedding gift, at her request (insistence?). I spent 6 months trying to talk her out of it, since on a difficulty scale of 1-10 I scored it an 11 at the time. I finally just gave up and just made it.

4) SMP- you are right, the chairs at the Gamble house all have a similar look/feel with the distinctive crest rail and split center splat flanked by two smaller splats. They do vary in height a bit, but all very similar. Looking closely at the original at the Huntington made me realize just how talented the craftsmen at the Hall's shop were. The crest rail on the original was probably shaped from a solid 4"x6" block of wood, it's more like sculpture than furniture. Truly humbling to look upon the results of such talented woodworkers. I am but an amateur by comparison.
 
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