I'm going a make a couple park benchs similar to this:
I can't find much of anything on the web.
TIA
"Roger Woehl" wrote
My advice is to buy some cheap wood and prototype, using the guidelines Roger posted above.
A chair that is comfortable for one can be torture for an other ... and just looking at a picture of what looks comfortable, won't guarantee "comfort".
A case in point - these chairs and bench don't "look" comfortable, but most who have sat at them find them extremely so.
Once again, when it comes to a woodworking design using parameters that must fit the human body, prototype, prototype, prototype!
Somehow I missed the original post. I've found that the only way a chair or bench will be comfortable for very long is with a seat pad and back pad. You can scuplt the seat and back all you want, and maybe make it comfortable for one person. The next person probably won't like it. So just make a decent looking chair, don't worry much about the seat and back, and get pads. And be sure to make it wide, and strong, enough for people with wide butts.
JOAT Even Popeye didn't eat his spinach until he had to.
... snip
Thanks for re-posting that link. The process you went through to refine the jigs and process in order to do a "production run" on the chairs may be quite useful to others in the future.
Excellent link, thanks. Tom
"Mark & Juanita" wrote
Thanks for the kind words ... not entirely altruistic, as it'll also allow me to remember how/what I did it in the first place. :)
So you suffer from CRS* too?
I know if I don't write it down, it didn't happen or it won't happen.
*CRS -- Can't remember stuff
I write setup instructions and tool details (bits, bases...) all over my jigs with a Sharpie. If you can't beat it, work around it!
I agree with the advice to get some cheap wood and make a simple prototype to mess around with. Many years ago I built a "garden bench" of 100 year old reclaimed white oak. I spent many hours hand- chopping mortice/tennon joints. It turned out beautiful and I was gratified that SWMBO liked it so much she put it in the living room instead of outdoors. It still sits there, but it mocks me every day because it ain't comfortable worth a darn. The seat is nice enough, but the back angle is just too straight. It's 5 degrees off vertical as I recall, but just not right for the seat angle. It seems most garden benches I've sat on share this design feature. Or maybe it's me that's out of step.
DonkeyHody "In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they are not."
This bench is quite comfortable...
D The seat is nice enough, > but the back angle is just too straight. It's 5 degrees off vertical > as I recall, but just not right for the seat angle.
It seems most garden benches I've sat on share this design feature. Or maybe it's me that's out of step.
There is a problem with the seat profile as the front edge of the curve presses against the underside of your thighs. To be comfortable the front portion of the seat needs to be flat under your thighs and only curve up slightly at the back. Once the rear seat curve becomes tangent to the (possibly tilted) seating plane, about 1/4 of the way in from the back it should not curve back up but just continue straight to the front seat edge. A completely flat seat is more comfortable than the one illustrated.
Mon, Dec 3, 2007, 10:54am (EST-3) snipped-for-privacy@heapg.com (Bob=A0Kirkpatrick) doth claimeth: A completely flat seat is more comfortable than the one illustrated.
Not in my experience. Maybe if I had a flat butt.
JOAT Even Popeye didn't eat his spinach until he had to.
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