Building a "club couch" from scratch...interesting project!

I posted a thread on here a few weeks ago about wingback chairs. I learned a lot about what not to do, and what works in a new world for me and my business. My choice of wood as well as my methods of construction were all influenced by books and people on the forum here for their input, so thanks for all of your help.

I ended up using alder as my choice of wood, if you are interested look at the thread for wingback chairs in the furniture forum. It has a finished and upholstered chair.
After doing this as my first project in furniture, I learned a crap load. I made templates of everything, and produced premade pieces. I altered the back on one and left the wings off, then rounded the corners slightly as an experiment, and it looked great (these are at the request of a designer I build for, he foots the bill while I experiment)

So on to the couch....he had a pair of club chairs in his living room. Being a designer, he has all these crazy ideas about what he wants me to build for his furniture line, and I am a complete novice (I do cabinets, finish carpentry, but am just getting into the furniture thing)

The chair is deep, 30" or so, and he wants a couch 90" wide of the same type. I was at a loss, so I told him I would have to tear the new upholstery off of one of the chairs to see how it was built. I had books, but to be perfect and exact, I needed the actual chair frame. He said no problem...he's got money.
So I tear off the fabric, and I am horrified at the craftsm,......wait, no...crapsmanship that passes for "fine furniture" these days.
The cuts were off by 10 degrees or more, and it was all stapled together. There was one gap of over 3/8" that was just left there. It was somewhat stable, but damn, what a shame.

I made mine in the same type, but used tight joints, lots of glue, and here's the thing I know many will cringe at... I used screws in the entire project. Namely pocket screws. 5/4 material, screwed with a kreg jig and cabinet screws, titebond II.
Not a single dowel, tenon or biscuit.
Trying to make a decent product in comparison to what I was copying was easy but I went a step farther and made a very high quality product.

How many people think the pocket screws and glue will hold for 20 plus years, and how many think it will fail? I am curious. If the original chair lasted this long, I believe I have a quality product.
Opinions welcome! Am I over building? Underbuilding?
My experience with glue and screws is very positive so far.

(NOTE: The picture is not finished. It still gets complete 5/4 by 3" frame around the bottom, corner blocks, and a 5" board across the front footrest area for support. The damn thing is beefy already, it will survive a tornado after I am done)

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Jon

I think it will be fine, though I'm no expert in upholstered furniture.

You've gotten yourself into a neat situation with this client. I'm a little jealous. Have fun.

Kerry Fullington

Josh,

What you have built using pocket screws is piece of furniture with butt joints. Screws, even pocket screws are just a clamping mechanism to hold a joint until the glue dries. Your joints that are end to edge grain will not hold up over time. Pocket screws and glue hold up well in a static situation such as a cabinet face frame but are no good for furniture where there is movement and stress placed on every joint. You should be using mortise and tenon construction.
Your club couch will be fine if no one ever sits on it.

D Brown

Member

Josh, I know you said you will add corner blocks and it is not done in this picture .

Imo if you add corner and glue blocks at every intersection of screwed parts the piece will be stout and even if the screws were removed the glue surfaces from so many places will survive . Is it better than M&T ? prolly quicker and maybe more accurate .

Josh Orr

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As for Kerry's comment, I have to disagree. I have been using pocket screws in all of my shop jigs and rolling cabinets, without glue, for years. They are more than a clamp, they are a permanent fastener. Saying if noone sits on it is a little extreme.
I also stated corner blocks, and 2" wood screws at joints. Even now, unfinished, I can lift it by one corner and the flex is so minimal it is less than the chair was, which is only 30" wide. And it held up for years under abuse with no glue, and only staples. Have you ever looked at the inside of a couch? They are built like crap these days.
There are a few dowels and interlocking pieces, but really, how many people have built an entire couch with mortise and tenon joints unless it is going to be exposed? You would have to charge $3000 just for the frame...
D. Brown has it right; even if I removed the screws I would guarantee it for a long time. Glue today is exceptional, and I have glued up joints many times and tried to break them; the wood always fails before the glue. But while it may seem pocket screws are too small or won't hold, I'll let you know in 20 years! I can't even get a squeak when I twist it and lift it. In fact, with all the couches I have sat on, it feels the beefiest even before corner blocks (20 of them)

Dave Nauman

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Hello Josh,
You're dead wrong. Glue will not hold end grain, screws are not substitutes for sound joinery, and those who do top flight work would indeed use mortice and tenon joinery throughout and charge accordingly. Check out the websites of the Irion Furniture Co. and Mack Headley and Sons, just to name two. Here's a photo of a wing chair frame built by the Headley shop; full mortice and tenon construction with a few screws where appropriate.

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Josh Orr

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yes, but those are wing chairs. I am using mortise and tenon on all my chair parts, when I can. I'm not making a chair here.
But show me a picture of a fully upholstered couch frame like mine with mortise and tenon on every joint. I have yet to find a single one. It doesn't make sense if you expect to make a profit. Not to say there are no interlocking pieces...there are indeed. The armrests are 8/4 material, shaped to fit and locked into the back with a mortise.
I understand procedure, but old timers have told me so many times my way won't work, and it did.
How did the chair I am reproducing from survive a couple of decades with staples and nothing else? The amount of pieces is why, there are a lot of parts and corner blocks. I would feel free to let any person sit on my couch when finished and be confident in it's construction.
It's like this...if a few crappy staples and 1/4" gaps held up on the original, and well, my piece with glue, screws and blocks will hold up to anything a family can throw at it. I may eat my words in 20 years, but I highly doubt it.

Have you taken apart a standard couch and seen the inside? It is junk. Besides fine furniture, like the picture above of the chairs, screws have come a long way.
But I have built dozens of different types of things, panels, murals, mantles, and I have a pretty good idea of what works. While I know furniture is completely different, a couch is going to spend a lot of time getting used, if my crappy couch at home can survive years of dogs, kids, and other rompings, my new one will do ten times better.
I guarantee the springs will go out long before it squeaks!
If anyone has ever used this method of screws and pocket screws, I would love to hear from your experiences.
But please don't just insult my method because "it ain't the way grandpa did it"...I get sick of that. Modern fasteners have come a long way.

Josh Orr

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One other thing...I agree that glue holds like crap in endgrain. I was more referring to all the joints and blocks as a whole that work in harmony. I would never remove the screws and just trust glue! :)
I don't want people to think that I used no tenons at all...the top rail, bottom rails are all two pieces of 5/4 sistered together, crown in and lapped on the edges. I staggered as many as I could, and I am cutting many of the final pieces into notches. as it sits, I can throw it around the room without any flex. It really feels solid! If I left it like in the picture, I am sure it would hold awhile, but fail eventually. I will post a finished pic when I am done.

Josh Orr

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P.S. Is that wingback in the picture made of pine? It sure looks like it...I got grief for using pine. Maybe it's an east coast thing...

Kerry Fullington

Josh,

Place one corner of your couch against a wall and then give the opposite corner a good push with your knee and hear the glue joints pop.

Sorry I can't agree with your joinery choices for furniture, upholstered or not.

Josh Orr

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Kerry,
I'll go a step further...not only did I push it against a wall, I had my friend and I each stand on one of the armrests and shake back and forth, and jump up and down, and he's 220 lb. Not a single pop to be heard.
Apparently you are underestimating the strength of screws and glue, with proper blocking and locking joints. All the borders on top and bottom are rabbeted into the frame, and there is no give at all when I hold one corner, less than 1/2" deflection total.
So whether you agree with me or not, I have enough faith in my skills to insure that it will endure for decades to come. I know it may not be the way many people learned to do it, but that never stopped me before. Unless you have built a couch this way before and had a callback, there is really no way to prove it one way or another.
Like I said before...if staples work, screws can only be an improvement. If it was a $25,000 couch, yeah, I would tenon everything. But that's just not the case. And even if I did, I doubt it would make that much of a difference.
But I finished it now, and it's one beefy beast. Heavy and ready for upholstery!

I

Tim Tebow

Josh,
Why not dowel? Isn't that the best of both worlds here? It's quick, accurate, strong, and might eliminate the need for the corner blocks. (This would assume you have a CNC and horizontal boring machine, which I don't know if you do).

Thanks for posting your work. Looks like a fun project, and hopefully profitable. I can rarely make money on the one-off furniture pieces I build. The critiques of your construction method posted here sound valid, but unnecessarily harsh. And I tend to agree with your conclusion. Why use mortise and tenon when you've seen that a stapled and glued couch survived as long as it has.

Josh Orr

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Thank you, Tim! I can't ever get anyone to compare the work to what I am duplicating, as opposed to what "they" do, or how someone else would make it.

Dowels are absolutely being used, though I didn't mention it, because every time I say dowel I get a bunch of grumpy old guys telling me tenons are better...which I agree with wholeheartedly....however, sometimes tenons are impractical. This couch is a prototype, and I am sure on my next model, (now that I have the dimensions and drawings I made) I can use tenons where necessary, and change up any small problems that arise. That being said, I bet this couch is more durable than the pieces of shit in most of our living rooms even as is.

I use dowels anywhere I can...as long as I am not compromising the integrity of the piece. I also like to use #12 2" screws in areas that are too fragile or awkward to dowel or tenon. While many of the above points from folks are totally valid, I still see no reason why not to use screws and dowels where able.

I guess when we get used to doing something a certain way, we often fail to be objective toward other possible methods. Many times for good reason...many times just because it is out of our comfort zone. "why take the risk" becomes a phrase we use on big projects, and seldom do we have the chance to take a different approach and see what happens. It is too costly to make a mistake.
But I am in a good place for that. I will take everything I have learned here on the forum and in books, and combine them to make a method that is solid and durable.
I recently made my first chair from scratch, with no plans, and no idea what it may look like in the end. My only thing was it had to have no fasteners other than wood, I used mostly dowels, with the base mortised with floating tenons. So I do know how to do these things, I jsut like to experiment with other joinery methods.

Oh...and did I mention?? I am a big fan of screws :)

(the picture is a photo of the armrest joined to the back, pretty frickin solid!)

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Dean

There's a club couch featured in Fine Woodworking's Design Book Seven like that, looks like loose tenon joinery, Greene and Greene style. The couch is made like a bench, with the leather cushions just loose on top. In this case a discerning owner can see the quality, and be more likely to pay extra for it. Hidden joints, even high quality ones, have little appeal to such customers, and you can charge accordingly.

Glenh

Josh-Drill out for dowels on any joints you have and it will be fine. The major thing about sofa and chair frames are getting the back pitch. seat depth, arm height and seat height right for comfort. I have an outside framemaker for when we get busy and he charges $300 for a sofa frame with rolled arms and uses solid 5/4 and 4/4 alder which is included. I wouldn't spend a lot of time figuring out how to build frames like this. He charges $200 for a chair frame. We make our money on springing and upholstering.

mark

Josh,
I build mostly cabinetry, so I'm not adverse to using pocket screws when they are hidden. I have also restored my fair share of old furniture. Finishes fail, screws fail, dowels fail, and old glue fails all from normal use. The naysayers know this; I suspect that you do too. You seem to be driven to doing a better job than the piece that you've disassembled; why? Your designer is willing to emulate the past; perhaps you be should too. As has been stated before, production work of this sort is cheap, and the middle of the road just means getting hit from both sides.
I can, however, offer some small bits of info. to help in your project. Screw failure is generally caused by either carelessness in installation or corrosion. Impact drivers and proper selection help with the first, and for the latter, stainless steel fasteners last "forever". The other thing to keep in mind when factoring into your engineering all of the improvements in materials that have occurred over the years, is that the dominant material that you're working in has effectively degraded in as much time.
On another note, I may be helpful in the future, perhaps even with your existing client to be a bit more realistic about the longevity of the pieces. Or, stated another way: the useful life of anything is an important design criteria. I imagine that you want to continue your education in this field, so be careful about overselling your current endeavors. In the company of the above posts, this may sound like I'm giving you a hard time, but really, I'm not. I think that you've done an good job making a middle of the road frame.

mark

Sorry. The "other note" should be "it", not "I". I doubt that I'm helpful in the present much less the future.

Josh Orr

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Thanks, Mark. I appreciate the words of wisdom.
Yes, you are right, I do want to make the best product possible. The problem is I have to work on his budget, which is in the middle.
I am getting $1000 per chair for the wingbacks. I am using all M&T joinery, and I have to finish the exposed mahogany legs, so it takes awhile. But I know I am getting good money still. And you are right...the money is in the upholstery. Unfortunately, I feel like the odd man out now. I usually get praise for my work, and with the couch I get a little defensive because I know many comments are right, and I really am winging it for my first one.
It is going to be more of a show piece than for sale. The designer wants me to make a few chairs, and a sofa and couch, plus a couple of end tables and coffee table. Then he will take pictures, and start his furniture line. If it takes off, it will be great. But I have to be cost effective until he actually "sells" something. Right now he is investing his own money, so I am in a tight spot.

I do use stainless fasteners, and try to get the cleanest 5/4 and 8/4 hemlock for my body. It is important to make a quality product, as I am a nitpicker about detail.
Now finished, there are dowels, laps and screws throughout. I think it will be a good first run.
But I guess I have to be firm, at $300 a frame Iwould get eaten alive. I don't even know how to charge...
So if I am getting $1100 for each chair including material, how would I charge for a couch? I mean, it takes about the same time, and I know the money is in the upholstery...would $1500 be too much for me to charge? I know that is really a dumb question...it depends on where you live, who you sell to, what your expenses are...
But I run a tight ship. I have very little overhead, no expensive machinery, just the basics. I can't invest too much in furniture making machinery, because by trade I am a finish carpenter and if the furniture business fails, I don't want to be stuck with a huge investment in tools.
Because of that, I spend a lot of time tooling up for different furniture, new templates, then next month a full kitchen of cabinets, you get the picture. I don't have a "dedicated" space for this, and I work alone.
So if he is willing to give me $1500 a couch frame, it would allow me to make a much better product without feeling rushed or cheated.
I am sure he will price them at $4500 or more, so I can't feel too guilty. :)
But I like to be fair. And I have no idea what the client expects as far as longevity...But if he is anything like me, hopefully a long time. I have brushed nickel plaques I place on every cabinet and furniture piece Imake. I don't want someone calling me in 20 years to tell me what a crappy product I made! :(

Glenh

If my guys build a frame and they are very good, I figure $720 is my price for just the frame at $60 per hour x 12 hours. To spring it and upholster it takes another 36 hours at $60 then the designer provides the fabric. After they mark the piece up it can cost the client $5300 with an average to high end fabric. The money is not in the frame work and we build them to last for generations.

Josh Orr

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Glenh,
Thanks for that pointer; everything helps. 12 hours sounds about right to me. I charge $75 an hour, so that would work out to about $1000 a piece. I add for overhead, profit and price accordingly.
I know I can do it cheaper, but I won't. The guy wants a great product, and I have to accommodate. If I begin mass producing them, I will get the price down. Until then, I will keep my prices up there unless he has a problem getting his asking price.
Finished product, without feet!

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Josh Orr

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UPDATE;
I delivered the sofa last week, with the best hopes the upholsterer would be happy...and she was pleased. She said she does a lot of chairs and couches, and that it was one of the best built pieces she had ever upholstered. In the end, there was less than 1/2" of deflection when I lifted one corner. Not bad for a huge sofa!
Woohoo!!! I might get the hang of this one day!

Josh Orr

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Here is the final pic before it gets upholstered!

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Glenh

Ask her how she is springing the seat. Looks like the frame is made for zig-zags. If she uses those for the seat it is not going to be a quality piece of furniture.

Josh Orr

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Yes, that is what was on the chair that I am duplicating. I had concerns about that as well; but I don't know what else to do. I have no plans, and the designer wanted it made exactly the same.
I guess we will find out after she is done. I hope it turns out okay. What would be used instead of springs? What options are there for me instead...I don't know enough about upholstery.

Glenh

We use hand tied coil springs on all of our sofas and most chairs unless they are thin rail. We need at least 5-6" on the front rail for coil springs. If it is a high leg sofa we will use zig zags. If it a low seat european contemporary we will use elastic webbing for the seat. She may have enough room for coil springs on that frame.

Josh Orr

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Thanks Glenh. I am sure the upholsterer will do the best she can. In the future, I will have a better idea of what to do and what not to do.

This is still new to me; I am fortunate to have the opportunity, but it is frustrating when I have nothing to go from. He just says "here...duplicate this.."
and they are all his sketches and ideas, or current furniture he wants to modify. I truly want to make the best product possible without going overboard. If you CAN go overboard.
Anyway, I hope for the best, and next time I can add more locking joints since I have handmade plans to go off. At least I am not in the dark.
I just found out yesterday he wants me to make another couch, same size. I am a little hesitant after the criticizm I got on the last one here on the forum. This time I will M&T the handrail and base. I will use floating tenons until I get a perfect frame size, then I can modify as needed.

It is like stepping into a new career; I am used to building cabinets and libraries, shelving, hanging crown, mouldings and the like. Now I have to retool my shop for furniture.
I'll get it figured out!