I don't mean to take up a lot of bandwidth with this subject but (eventually) have another question: I'm replacing two of the four blocks at this time since the other two appear to be quite solid. I'll add that I got the chair/ottoman in the early 70's and the two blocks - held on solely by glue - failed after roughly 35 years. Not too bad of a record.
Brian, I like the peg idea and this was to be glue day, but I'm concerned if the glue gives up after say a couple of years, or? My plan is to use two 3/16" rods which will of course go through the blocks and about three quarters through the plywood. Now knowing the possibility of the blocks to come unglued, possibly including the new ones, I'll do fairly frequent checking to see of any are starting to come unglued, hopefully before they completely fail. Now the question: Should the glue fail or start to on these new blocks, the standard way of removal is with a (sharp) putty knife. Since I'm also using the rods/pegs when gluing to assure alignment, they're not going to want to budge since they'll be partially, or very much, glued in. To toot my horn a bit here, whenever I'm restoring a client's Alfa, I always take into consideration that any part might need to be removed at some point. The chair's block might be able to be pried off, but getting the rod out is another matter. These are very cool chairs and I don't want to screw it up, thus my procrastination for a number of years. I'll add here that used ones in good condition go for $1.2K to 1.8K. Should someone drill through the wood to make sure the blocks won't break again, their Eames chair is then worth about $300. I've followed them on eBay. And I agree, solely gluing steel on to wood makes me very nervous. Unfortunately so does drilling 'extra' holes into the wood. Biba Irwindale, CA USA -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
