Aloha

Here is one of the chairs that I shipped to Honolulu this week. I always feel separation anxiety when I have to ship chairs. I suppose that handing the piece to a guy in a truck doesn't give the same sense of completion as a smiling client.

Below are a couple of detail shots. I didn't get a chance to take these chairs to my photographer, partly because I wanted to be timely in shipping them and getting them there would have been difficult.


This is a butternut seat


Here you can see my packing crate. I make it with 1"X3" pine that I joint into L's for the corners. I make one panel at a time. First bisquiting in the top and bottom brace and then gluing and stapling the cardboard on. I use 275 lb test cardboard panels from Uline. They are two layers of corrugated cardboard that add up to 1/4 inch. Where the panels overlap with flaps, I use high strength spray adhesive and ring shank nails with washers (used to secure tar paper etc...) to seal them. Later cellophane tape covers all seams and wraps every direction.



This method makes a very strong box that most importantly can be made any size. As you can see in the photo, I wrap the extremities with padded paper and then bubble wrap. Then I use cardboard struts to both hold the chair floating in the middle of the box and to stiffen the sides. By combining using the stiffening effect at the parts most vulnerable to the sides, I can safely isolated the chair from side impacts... I hope!