Best Furniture Manufacturer - Observed one of their techniques

[baileyuph]

I had 9 chairs dropped off that needed miscellaneous repairs - made by Best Manfacturer in Indiana.

The interesting technique that was noted had to do with the way they mounted a wooden arm on an open arm chair (no upholstery on the arms).  That was accomplished with no wood screws, no wood dowels, and no visible external fasterners of any type.

The technique used, for example, held the show wood arm to the bottom cushion side seat rail as follows:  A dowel shaped piece of steel acted as a nut inside the wood acting as a nut through which a threaded shaft was screwed into fomr the inside.

What struck me as so different was the arm wood and the side frame rail was predrilled to accept the solid steel rod with diameter hole threads and how the wood was predrilled to accept the rod, all to yield a result where the arm ws held on by tension and nothing showed from the outside.

Speaking of the Best manufacurer, they seemed to produce pretty good quality - overall.

Chair like that made in America too, wonder how they compete?

I also am wondering if any here have had the experience to analyze this - arm to wood seat frame attachment technique?

I have worked on a few Best products but believe this was the first time saw this securement technique used.

Doyle

[MinUph]

Pictures please

[Rich]

Seems to me that upholstered furniture has been manufactured pretty much the same way for eons and I believe that if another method is easier or cheaper to produce and yields the same results, why not do it? Other products have evolved in this way, why not furniture?
Now, having said that from a manufacturers perspective (which of course, I'm not) what I'm really most interested in is how does a new technique affect the person who will re-upholster it? In many cases, what has been an improvement for the manufacturing process has produced nightmares for the repair person, mainly b/c the manufacturer would rather the customer toss the item and come back to them to buy another.
But I don't think chair frames have been made in such a way that makes re-upholstery a smooth operation. So in my mind, maybe changing the manufacturing process could actually help the re-upholstery operation as well?
Did you find that piece easier or more difficult to deal with than a traditional frame Doyle?
Rich

[baileyuph]

Rich,

The arm was attached by a nut screwed on a threaded rod coming out of the arm on the inside of the bottom (covered with dust cover).

So, answer is easier and more durable, my opinion, because it wasn't mounted with a wood screw(s) that would eventually needed refurbishing (reamed out). 

Interesting thing is the threaded rod was inside the wood and it joined another threaded rod at 90 degrees.  Advantages are, more durable, easy to attach to seat side rail, and one could get it tighter.  Lastly, another advantage is from the exterior one could not see any of the internal hardware that was designed and inserted into the inside of the arm.  What you saw from the outside is the beautiful finished wood as it was like some older furniture, not upholstered at all - just attached. 

It wouldn't do any good to take a picture of the arm installed because like I said, all hardware is inside the wood. 

Given the next chance of going to the specialty hardware place that has the internal hardware parts, I will get the nomenclature of each piece of the hardware (about 4 pieces) and post that as it would probably mean something to a mechanical engineer or mechanic.l

Yes, it is the way to go and this chair was/is made by BEST Chair - the manufacturer.

American ingenuity is working at gaining efficiencies to compete, they have to or...........go the way of other American manufactureres who did not change.

Best Chair (the manufacturer) is doing well and their focus has been on institutional furniture as well as domestic. 

I have been doing research as time allows - as an interest in their products and their success.  Therefore, I should mention that all woods used by BESt Chair were/are meet high standards - definitely unlike the stuff coming from the Asian manufacturers (imports).

Good points in response --

Doyle

[chrisberry12]

Is this an office or conferences chair? I used to refurbish offive chairs and this technique is used often on high end furniture like Steelcase

[baileyuph]

The chairs are fully upholstered and used by corps in upscale settings.  I just got another delivery to work on.  These most of the work is details like seams, legs, framing, etc; opposed to complete redo.

In this economy, it seems business has gravitated noticeably to repairing good stuff.  Oh well, that is fine, especially when there is sufficient volume.  That and all the other dimensions of work I do, does keep me busy.

The point, however was the hardware connecting everything to the chairs - legs and arms uses hardware that is impressive.  Works and seems to hold up about the best technique I have seen.  The Best Chair company is in Indianna, like mentioned earlier, and it is good to see domestic vitality in the furniture business.  So much comes in from off shore. 

However, after looking at the legs, there was a question regarding the origin?  So, that might be open because some manufacturers here do it all but the screw on legs which state "foreign made".  Best could be making them, however.  Just saying.

Doyle