Seatmore Table and Chairs

A little while back I had a client come in that brought me these chairs and table. I think at one time these were manufactured to go in all sorts of soda shops around the country. Apparently these are attributed to FRANK RIEDER & SONS, PHILADEPHIA, PA.  I have had great success at restoring latex covered pieces in the past and they are difficult to say the very least. This one was no exception to the rule. I also had some pretty extensive glue ups and repairs to do to them after I removed all of the latex as well as repairs to the joinery on the table. I also had to re-make several pieces and luckily I had some of the long leaf pine just laying about the shop. (there were chairs her from two different sets, long leaf pine and quarter sawn oak. I don't know why anyone would ever cover these up...)Here is what the set looked like when it came in....

And here,  I will just include some detailed pictures with brief descriptions of all of the repairs...

Table, Pre-Stripping..Repair leg to Apron and Tongue and Groove on Top 









Single Chair. Dis-assembly for Repair








Top Rail Pre-Repair












Top Rail Removed for Repair









Chair Rung Replacement Comparison










One Rung Replaced (Bridle Joint)








All Rungs and Dowels in Place








Second Chair Rung Replacement












Glue Up 





As you can see, there were some pretty extensive repairs and most of the joints had to be re-glued and lots of them re-made. It took a while before I could even get to the sanding and finishing part, which was in itself pretty intensive. 


In the process, there are many things that you need to avoid stripping/sanding and so, unlike what many people think, it's not just dipping it (which I never do) or sanding off the finish (a total no-no in my book, ever) and just painting on some stripper. In this process, I ALWAYS like to save any label or marking that is original to the piece if at all possible and I have many different methods of doing this. In this search for better ways to preserve them, and preserving the furniture in general, I have taken it upon myself to do more research, usually just out of curiosity, on the pieces and origins of the furniture...I have decided, since I take so many pictures in the first place (not always, but usually), to offer this as sort of an extra service to those that want it. I like to inform people about their furniture if I can. I have decided to offer a sort of pictoral history of the repairs and whenever possible historical data or links about the origins of the furniture in question. That being said, I sort of offered that up on these and was able to save what was left of the labels on them. Here are a couple of pics and a couple of pics of the finished pieces. 














Stained and Oiled







Stained and Oiled


(the one oddball quarter sawn oak chair. Not an original part of this set, but I thought it was really great nonetheless.)







Finished Table Top (w/o Marble Top)





I see on the label the patent date says 1920,then there is another date beside that, says 1924. I don't know if that is a second patent date, or a manufacture date. I would guess that they are early 20's though, judging by my research, very possibly the 1924 date is the manufacture date. I thought they were very interesting though. Not my typical mid-century style restoration, but I do a lot of older stuff as well and thought this one was a pretty nice set and worthy of a mention.  Hope you did too. 

Handcrafted Modern

Thanks to my wonderful wife, this is finally built and functioning. Been working on this project for a while now.

Handcrafted Modern Furniture