Dining chair designed by Danish furniture maker Tage Frid.
This was done as a demonstration for a student. Interesting project because the only things on-axis in the model are the long edges of the front and rear seat rails and the stretcher between the front legs.
Really nice one, wonder how comfortable, is it?
Thanks.
As for comfort, I don’t know. You can find examples of this chair for sale. I think it was designed at a time when people didn’t lounge around the table after dinner so the chairs didn’t need to be so comfortable. I expect it would be adequate, though.
Just reading on him, quite a designer and educator he was.
Yes he was. I met him in the early 70s when I was taking a woodworking class in fine art school. During his presentation he hand cut some dovetails for us. We were all amazed that he could cut the joint while carrying on a conversation with us. He finished paring the last pin and put the two pieces together. Then he look up and scanned around the room as if he was looking for something. The professor asked him what he needed and he said, “Dovetail hammer.” None of us, including the professor, had ever heard of a dovetail hammer before. Then Frid’s eyes lit up. He walked over to the tool wall and grabbed a claw hammer. He went back over to the bench, beat on the end of one of the pins in his joint, then held up the hammer and with a big grin, said, “Dovetail hammer!” 
Well, you should have for sure write those anecdotes with your posts, models get their character in them.
Did he hammer directly on the finished work with the hammer head, or use a sacrificial wood block in between?
Directly on the work.
The common approach when cutting dovetails is to leave the pins slightly proud so they can be planed off flush with the adjoining piece. That also allows you to whack at the pin without damaging the surrounding wood. Beating on the pin with the hammer spread out the fibers of the pin to fill an inadvertent gap in the joint.
I’m currently trying to build this chair. Unfortunately Tage’s book isn’t clear on certain aspects of this chair. For instance, if the legs inner taper all the way to the side aprons, or if the taper begins after the stretcher, or how the are the legs supposed to be shaped to match the taper of the side aprons front to back.
It’s been a long time since I modeled the chair and I don’t have the references to hand but as I remember the tapers on the inside run all the way up to the shoulder of the tenon on the top of the leg.
It might be in his book III. I’ll have to look at it later.
Carpenter I used to work for called those ‘assembly tolerances’.
He also used to yell at me ‘we aren’t building a church!’ - until one day we were working on a church property…
That’s a nice looking style and model.
