Progress on the Cockatoo Chairs

The cocatoo chair prototype from my blog post of 6/5

7/1/09 ... Frames welded and arms on ... more tomorrow

Sam is underway on the cockatoo chairs ... It's going well for him. He made a new jig to make the seats all the same and then we had to figure out how to make all the chairs the same. Once he had the main parts made, we took the prototype and built a frame under it, marking the locations of the various parts and correcting the asymmetries of the prototype by averaging distances of parts from vertical and from center. It seems like it worked well as they all look the same to me ... click the photos to enlarge them ...

the main parts

jig from the back

jig from the front ...

And this from our client ... check it out; it's a hoot
http://birdloversonly.blogspot.com/2007/09/may-i-have-this-dance.html

Finished the Cockatoo Chair ...

We finished the chair prototype today and after work I fired up my new camera. I've been impressed by technology before, but this was/is a surprise ... As a first test after charging the battery for half an hour, I went to the shop, walked our chair prototype out to the abandoned flower garden, and took a couple of snapshots. I came home and put them on the computer and was blown away ... The chair came out great and we're very proud of it, but whoooooa ... the photos are amazing. These have been compressed for the web .... the full size versions knocked my socks off right out of the camera ....and I haven't even read the manual yet ... Click to enlarge ...



On the way home I stopped in the driveway to photograph Kit's tree peony that's blooming... I've taken photos of it before, like every year probably, but nothing like this ... Top one is the whole image compressed ... Bottom is a part of the top image ....

Click these to check them out ...

Update on the Cockatoo Chairs

All welded up now ... We kind of like the weld 'buttons' on the top of the bow ...

Believe it or not, we are still working on the prototype parrot/now cockatoo chairs. (Original Post) Our client has been extremely patient but now we're on the home stretch ... Primer tomorrow. Click the photos to enlarge them ... And I thought designing a wood chair from scratch was hard .... The cockatoo is still not perfect but after talking with our client, we modified the one we had by cutting his neck, 'cocking' his head and rewelding it. We'll make it right for the real ones. The rest of the chair is all welded now and it looks good and seems comfortable for most folks. The size and proportions of the new chair are much better and we changed the scale of a couple of the elements, especially the 'cage' bars. It'll look a lot different once it's all painted ..... almost done !

The full size drawings

side view

Clamped up and ready for 'the cage'

reworked and rewelded cockatoo

Took it out in the garden yesterday to have a beer with it's friends....It was happy to be out ...
Paint tomorrow ...