Concordia-ish Chair

onocoffee

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Sep 23, 2024
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Baltimore, Maryland, USA
After the recent discussions about George Nakashima, I was curious to see and learn more about his work. And while most people seem to be captivated by the Conoid Chair, I found the Concordia Chair, designed by Mira Nakashima, to be more intriguing to my tastes.

The chair was originally designed in 2003 for the Concordia Chamber Players. It's meant to be flat-seated and open to allow for the expressiveness of the stringed musician (like celloists). I just loved the design and wanted to mimic it.

Luckily, the website provides some basic measurements (seat height 17.5", depth 19.5", width 19.5"), so working with images from the Nakashima website, as well as The Concordia Players and American Music Furniture, and a ruler pressed to my screen, I tried to figure out the different measurements and then created templates for each of the five pieces.

Made the chair from an 8/4 walnut slab from a tree that was felled about 2 miles from my house and milled and kiln dried by my local sawyer. This was also the slab I had trouble rough cutting with the ATF 55 E.

It's not an exact replica of Mira Nakashima's chair but it's fairly close. The seat has a split that I tied using "bowties" in the shape of characters from the Filipino Baybayin script. The other two tenons are also characters from that script hiding the pocket holes that I drilled into the top when my clamps weren't holding the two pieces of the seat together. I figured the opposing pocket hole screws would pull the glue up tight and it worked brilliantly - except in my panic, I drilled the pockets into the top instead of the bottom. C'est la vie.

The seat and the rear leg are assembled in a kind of half-lap (I guess that's what it's called). The legs and back attach using 10mm Dominos. I'm pretty sure Nakashima Woodworkers cut integrated mortises and tenons for all these parts, but they're true Woodworkers, as opposed to me: "woodworker".

The chair was sanded from P40 to P240 using a variety of Rubin 2, Granat and Cubitron Xtract. I just finished it this morning with a coat of pure tung oil - which I'm really liking.

In the pic, the chair is with the cherry side table I made previously, as well as a Ficus on a white oak bonsai stand.

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[member=82312]onocoffee[/member] Congrats on this impressive piece! Is the chair back stable/sturdy enough? It's hard to imagine someone hefty leaning back in that thing.
 
Very nice work! I'm also impressed by the beautiful Ficus, my bonsai always died a lingering death despite my best efforts!
 
[member=37411]ear3[/member]  Thank you. It is quite sturdy. And I am a bit in heft and it doesn't wobble when I sit in it!

[member=75933]luvmytoolz[/member] Thank you, as well. I just got the ficus last summer and started working with it. Forgot to pull the wire until a week ago - that's why you can see the removed wire reaching out of the pot. By the time summer returns, it will be time to retrim.
 
That's a great looking chair.....about as minimal as you get, except for a milking stool. 
I can't tell from the pics, where does the leg fit, in relation to the crack?
 
That's a great looking chair.....about as minimal as you get, except for a milking stool.
I can't tell from the pics, where does the leg fit, in relation to the crack?
Thanks!

One of the legs runs across the crack. If you look closely into the crack, you can see the tenon. Maybe it would be more hidden if I used Sipo Dominos but my dealer doesn't have those on hand.

I don't know if the average person sitting in the chair will notice but it now does seem rather glaring to me!
 

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Over the weekend, I got a 12' length of Carbon Smart Thermal Oak. This is urban lumber that has been fired in a kiln to drive the moisture content down to 2-3% - something akin to yakisugi but it sounds more like coffee roasting to me. I was planning to make a table with it but today I thought to make another version of the Concordia-ish chair. My cellist niece came by the other day to try out the first chair and give me her notes and I tried to incorporate some of those changes today - mainly wider and angled legs for greater stability, less delta in the seat shape and a lower backrest. I also tried to simplify the joinery for the rear spine.

The Thermal Oak is an interesting wood but it seems a bit brittle as edges seemed too ready to chip - whether end grain or long grain. I also get that the intent of this product isn't for furniture but rather for exterior use. However, I'm intending to keep this chair outside. Which is the heart of this post.

What would be a good finish to apply to the Thermal Oak wood? They say that even though the lumber is as brown as walnut, it will grey over time. I'd like to preserve the color as much as possible and was thinking about using WaterLox. I've had good results using WaterLox to build coffee shop countertops. I'm actually shocked at how well it repels water and doesn't fog or get wonky - even after years of use.

I understand a lot of people use spar varnish for these kinds of applications but I'd prefer not to have epoxy level coatings on the piece. I'd like it to be as natural feeling as possible. The original chair I did with tung oil but I'm presuming that won't last very well in the elements.

Thanks!
 
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