Thos.Moser Chair

[Oakwood]

I am building a Thos. Moser Cherry Table with several Cherry and Ash chairs and one Cherry and Ash bench. The chairs and bench will be the Eastward design. Having never built a chair, I built a practice chair from Poplar and Oak. It turned out fairly well and is very strong.
The problem is the angle from the seat to the back. I missed it.:BangHead: The back is too upright and uncomfortable.
Can anyone give me some information on seatback angles for chairs and benches? I'm sure not gonng to cut into expensive Cherry until I know what I am doing (as if I ever do).

Oakwood

 

[Tarhead]

I would go to a comfortable chair with a bevel gauge and duplicate it. The seat will also need to be pitched back a little. Our dining room chairs are pitched 8% for the back and 5% for the seat. Here's a good reference:
http://www.woodbin.com/ref/furniture/chairs.htm

 

[mlzettl]

John,

In my Spring/Summer 2008 Thos. Moser catalog there is a just about dead on side view of the Eastwood chair. The seat back angle measures 13 degrees. There is also a very slight slope in the seat itself that looks to be about 1-2 degrees. Add that to the sculpting of the seat, which is deeper in the back, and it probably is an effective 2-3 degree slope.

The seat slope is often neglected in chair design/construction. If the seat is dead level, it makes it feel like you are going to slide off the chair. Do you think that this might actually be the problem?

One simple thing to try is to put a couple of blocks under the front legs to add a couple of degrees to the seat and back slope, and see how it feels. If you don't want to elevate the front, you could trim off the back legs a bit, but that's irreversible.

Finally, have you ever sat in the real thing? It may feel the same as yours. Everyone has there own preference as to what constitutes a comfortable chair. I suspect that Moser's is designed based upon what the "average" person likes.

Hope this helps.

Matt

 

[Oakwood]

Thanks for the replies. The seat on my practice chair has a good angle on it. As you mention the seat angle is critical to the comfort of a chair. The back angle is where I screwed up and I appreciate the suggestions.
I am checking all the chairs I find to determine the most comfortable angle. I assume there is a target a angle for chair backs but I have not found it published anywhere.

 

[fergy]

Thanks for the replies. The seat on my practice chair has a good angle on it. As you mention the seat angle is critical to the comfort of a chair. The back angle is where I screwed up and I appreciate the suggestions.
I am checking all the chairs I find to determine the most comfortable angle. I assume there is a target a angle for chair backs but I have not found it published anywhere.

Page 50, "The Complete Manual of Woodworking", Jackson, Day and Jennings, 1999

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Manu...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239843032&sr=8-1



In this example, back rest 20-25 degrees from vertical, seat 5-8 degrees from horizontal.

 

[Oakwood]

Thanks fergy,

I will order the book. i have several manuals on woodworking but surprisingly, no referance for seat angles.

 

[fergy]

Buy a used copy and save some cash. And realize that it's published in England, so things are a little different in it. It's got good info, most of it pretty cursory. And mine was published in 1999.

However, the human diagrams in the section I took that information from are pretty interesting.