That machine was made in a town near me. Gardner Massachusetts. Nicknamed chair city. My town was is famous for Starrett tools. Nice to see it in action. Made to last.
Magical name, Starrett. My dad was a turret lathe operator in Cleveland. I have his 1" mic (that's micrometer) and his try square. I didn't get his tool chest 😢😢😮😢
"Starrett" A magical name! My dad was a turret lathe operator in Cleveland. I have his 1" mic (micrometer) and his try square, both Starrett. His tool chest was auctioned off. 😢😢😢 Anything in today's production with that name is expensive!
Thank you so much for sharing the seat scooping machine. That added process makes a hard surface comfortable to sit upon. Please thank the shop for allowing us to see this wonderful machine. Cool tool!!
Wow! This is so awesome to see....and a bit surreal! My family used to own and run Ramsdell Furniture Company in Gardner, MA. My Grandfather was also an engineer, and know to help companies refine their equipment, and he helped the LG McKnight company refine that machine to make it more reliable and safer to operate (and faster). Never thought that I would watch a YT video showing off a machine that made parts for the chairs that our family company used to make back in the day. 😊
That is super cool to see and see in action. I have actually heard of the Tell City Furniture Co. from the days when I lived in Evansville, Indiana. What a great piece of History.
I still cut all mine using scorps and spoke-shaves. No noise and no dust. I only do custom handmade chairs. You have become a chair factory, which requires lots of noise and dust. Cool machine.
Amazing and had no idea of the processes involved. That is a classic piece of machinery and was smiling to see it still going strong, appears well maintained. Excellent connect … that’s Matt
They knew how to build machines back then. I remember reading in Fine Woodworking about 15 years ago about a guy who had developed a router jig to do it - for us mere mortals. 😊
I think that pantograph seat machine setup maybe around 30yrs old now i remember seeing something about around the 90's.... but I do appreciate the fact that a 100 year old dedicated machine can still show up a cnc router for production work.
@@alexlail7481 Yes, more like 30 years ago. Surprising that they opted to feed the piece cross grain - I would have thought along the grain was a better option.
@@recipio6561 I noticed that too. I think it simplified the mechanism enough to make up for the occasional explosion of a seat blank 'acceptable', if you've ever witnessed someone run a board cross grain through a planer it would definitely be exciting for the operator and keep them on their toes for awhile afterwards 😉. I'm not sure what cosmic rule decreed that type of seat needs to have the grain running front to back but every one I have seen with the scooped seat has run front to back...
Hi 👋,Matt , I have just been looking 👀 at some of your work and your shop , you are a very lucky man, great work shop, I wish I was still working, I still have most of my tools and equipment, ie jointer/ planer , thickness SCM . Wadkin 4 head EKA , 2 bandsaws/ Resaw . Spindle moulder 10Hp Table-saw , 2 woodturning lathes Wadkin RS8 , Kontour 1500 A , Mafell routers Festool routers, and lots of nice tools, I am 71 years young, back in 2019 I was scammed by my ex female partner, were I had to move to my property in France or I would of lost that as well, Keep up the great work, stay safe, I look forward to seeing your next project, PHIL FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOULIN FRANCE.
Very interesting to see how this is. done. Many thanks for this vid! Now I wonder how other manufacturers that don'e have one of these antique machines do their chair scoops as there aren't many of those old machines around.
Wow- that’s incredible. It’s just wild to think about the differences between small and large scale woodworking. It’s almost like it’s not even the same craft being performed. Orders of magnitude faster than any other method I could have imagined doing. Too cool.
If the machines are no longer being manufactured, then how are modern chairs made? Obviously some are manufactured with old machines, but there must be a new method/machine too? Thanks Matt for the insight into seat scoopers.
Their is a newer machine called a 'Master carver'. I have heard of it being used but it is not as quick or reliable. I think they date from the 60s-70s but I'm not sure. Its essentially multi head (maybe 10 heads) Pantagraph router. It has one station with a pattern of wood or metal and multiple stations that hold blanks and uses a centrally driven router like head to carve the shape think something like a prehistoric cnc. I personally haven't been able to get close enough to really get a feel for the specifics, a former coworker ran one for about 20 years and described it and said that depending on the patterns a cycle took 10 minutes to 1hr for most things. I work at a factory that makes upholstered furniture... I always find it amazing that most of our machinery was made before the 40s or 50s and is more reliable than the few newer versions of the same machine. Of the approximately 15 bandsaws we have all but 3 were built to run on lines shafts (1880s-> 1920s) and converted to electricity around the 30s or 40s... guess which bandsaws are the least reliable 🙃. We also have some machines that are roughly 75 to 100 years old, it trims one board end to a precise angle and bores for dowels they're purely mechanical and freak out the Osha inspector... cause once you step on the pedal it clamps down cycles regardless of what's there. There is a newer (1980s) version that does both ends at the same time but it's less reliable and takes longer to setup. My points is that they probably made a couple thousand of those machines when they were in production and every couple decades they just get refit with modern switches and maybe an extra guard to satisfy Osha.
That was really a great video. I never thought about the shaping of the butt seat area of a solid wood chair. The machine was very cool and was fast and efficient. That would be a great tool to have for sure in the kit making for chair seats. See you on the next one.
Matt, very interesting. I worked in an engraving shop making steel die engraving for printing. Some of the machines that actually printed on the paper were from 1875 or so. Big old monsters that worked better than the newer machines with fewer breakdowns. It was actually fun to work there.
That is cool..... My question is how often do the knives need to be sharpened and once sharpened how do they set them up again so the profile stays the same between batches.,,
I used to use one just like it. We did red oak (puke) sets. The chip out was horrible. I spent more time on a slack belt sander with one hand pushing the profile down and the other sliding a tray back n forth to clean them up.
Thanks Matt, that was very interesting... I always knew that a special machine made the seat bottoms but never actually seen the actual machine that does it... It was very cool seeing a machine that's 100 years old still working flawlessly...
Matt, Big Thanks! That were extreamly interesting. I thought it was done a lot differently. That is one heck of an amazing machine. Takes much of the hardest work of a wooden chair making only a few seconds, WOW. I wonder what a chair manufacturer does to make the scooped seat if they don't have one of these machines since they are not made anymore? Please tell the company Thanks from us for letting you film that process!
6:05 About ten seconds before you said it, I was thinking exactly "I would never have thought . . ." As my mother used to say at any coincidence like that, "Great minds think alike."
Matt, can you possibly put out a video about your process of how you found these woodworking shops to do this manufacture for your kit products? I think it's pretty commonplace to find machine shops to make mechanical parts but it seems like a totally different animal to find woodworking job shops like this that can do production-level runs. When I think of production woodworking shops I think of things like cheap cabinets produced for Lowe's/Home Depot, or similar, where they're producing the whole product.
Thanks! I too have been wondering how these seats are made.👌🤗 What surprises me is that the cutting blade is situated along the grain, so it's cutting perpendicular to the grain.😳 That calls either for very frequent switching of the blades, or a lot of rejects because of tear-outs. Or am I missing something here?🤔👴🤓
Really interesting and unexpected. I wonder how they did it in High Wycombe at the height of Windsor chair production. I think they started with a travisher while the wood was still wet, and the sculpting was deeper. Great video as usual.
Amazing machine. I couldn't see how it cuts the ridge in the front of the seat (leg scoops?) and maintains the curve at the back of the seat. Does the cutter mechanism tilt? Are the cams at front and back different profiles?
At the art and craft shows, I would wonder what is art and what is craft. I concluded, if it is singular, it is art. If there are 100 identical things, it is craft.
Amazing! Now I know how commercial chairs get there butt scooped! Do they have someone in house that makes the blades that do the cutting! Bet the metal in that extremely heavy blade costs some cheddar!
That was very interesting. Tell the shop that we really appreciate them allowing you to film this machine.
I agree. Let them know.
So right
Absolutely! thank them, we appreciate it.
Fascinating! I never would have imagined that's how it's done. They had clever engineers back then.
And the engineers and fabricators were able to design, fabricate, assemble and tune such machinery without a computer! 😳
What a concept!! 🤯
That machine was made in a town near me. Gardner Massachusetts. Nicknamed chair city.
My town was is famous for Starrett tools. Nice to see it in action. Made to last.
Magical name, Starrett. My dad was a turret lathe operator in Cleveland. I have his 1" mic (that's micrometer) and his try square. I didn't get his tool chest 😢😢😮😢
"Starrett" A magical name! My dad was a turret lathe operator in Cleveland. I have his 1" mic (micrometer) and his try square, both Starrett. His tool chest was auctioned off. 😢😢😢
Anything in today's production with that name is expensive!
I do enjoy seeing how things are made and especially with older machinery that still works to date. Nice video.
Good afternoon from Croatia 😊
Thank you for the scooping explanation and look at an ingenious machine.
Astonishing quality of cut for such a massive pair of knives doing one pass. Quite the bit of kit.
Amazing, I could watch this machine all day.
Keith Rucker at vintage machines has a great youtube channel as well using and restoring vintage machines.
Love those old machines. No stupid circuitry to go bad, just simple mechanical movements. Very cool, thanks for sharing.
very interesting, thank you and to the company that let you shoot video.
Thank you so much for showing us how the seat is scooped. I had no idea.
Thanks for showing us a cool old machine!!!
5/6/23; . That McKnight machine...chair 'seat scoop' Planer(?)...very interesting & impressive! Thx for that tour & background info. 👍👏⚙️😊
Thank you so much for sharing the seat scooping machine. That added process makes a hard surface comfortable to sit upon. Please thank the shop for allowing us to see this wonderful machine. Cool tool!!
Whoever designed that machine was certainly a very clever person.
Wow! This is so awesome to see....and a bit surreal! My family used to own and run Ramsdell Furniture Company in Gardner, MA. My Grandfather was also an engineer, and know to help companies refine their equipment, and he helped the LG McKnight company refine that machine to make it more reliable and safer to operate (and faster). Never thought that I would watch a YT video showing off a machine that made parts for the chairs that our family company used to make back in the day. 😊
Thanks Matt! Great video. I love seeing older machinery still in use. What an ingenious machine.
Good Moring Cremona Family
That is super cool to see and see in action. I have actually heard of the Tell City Furniture Co. from the days when I lived in Evansville, Indiana. What a great piece of History.
Very interesting
Really a very simple machine.
Thanks for taking the time and effort to show the machine.
Thank you Matt - this was great content!
I still cut all mine using scorps and spoke-shaves. No noise and no dust. I only do custom handmade chairs. You have become a chair factory, which requires lots of noise and dust. Cool machine.
How very interesting! Neat that you were able to film in that shop.
Very Very Interesting seeing how the dip in the seats are made. Awesome !!!! Thanks !!!!
Very interesting. Thank you Keith Rucker for the catalog 👍
Amazing and had no idea of the processes involved. That is a classic piece of machinery and was smiling to see it still going strong, appears well maintained.
Excellent connect … that’s Matt
Love the old production machines, built to last.
They knew how to build machines back then. I remember reading in Fine Woodworking about 15 years ago about a guy who had developed a router jig to do it - for us mere mortals. 😊
I think that pantograph seat machine setup maybe around 30yrs old now i remember seeing something about around the 90's.... but I do appreciate the fact that a 100 year old dedicated machine can still show up a cnc router for production work.
@@alexlail7481 Yes, more like 30 years ago. Surprising that they opted to feed the piece cross grain - I would have thought along the grain was a better option.
@@recipio6561 I noticed that too. I think it simplified the mechanism enough to make up for the occasional explosion of a seat blank 'acceptable', if you've ever witnessed someone run a board cross grain through a planer it would definitely be exciting for the operator and keep them on their toes for awhile afterwards 😉.
I'm not sure what cosmic rule decreed that type of seat needs to have the grain running front to back but every one I have seen with the scooped seat has run front to back...
Very interesting! Thanks for showing how you make your chair kits.
👏👏👏much much more please Matt!
That is awesome. It looks like it leaves a very good surface for cutting crossgrain.
Very cool Matt! Good to see ya again!
Lake Havasu 🌞 Az
What an interesting and impressive machine.
Thanks for sharing Matt all runs off the cam , too kewl !
A dedicated machine for butt scoop n who would have thought ?
Hi 👋,Matt , I have just been looking 👀 at some of your work and your shop , you are a very lucky man, great work shop, I wish I was still working, I still have most of my tools and equipment, ie jointer/ planer , thickness SCM . Wadkin 4 head EKA , 2 bandsaws/ Resaw . Spindle moulder 10Hp Table-saw , 2 woodturning lathes Wadkin RS8 , Kontour 1500 A , Mafell routers Festool routers, and lots of nice tools, I am 71 years young, back in 2019 I was scammed by my ex female partner, were I had to move to my property in France or I would of lost that as well, Keep up the great work, stay safe, I look forward to seeing your next project, PHIL FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOULIN FRANCE.
Very interesting to see how this is. done. Many thanks for this vid! Now I wonder how other manufacturers that don'e have one of these antique machines do their chair scoops as there aren't many of those old machines around.
That machine is genius. Thanks for the vid
You’re onto something!! More industrial machines please!!
Wow- that’s incredible. It’s just wild to think about the differences between small and large scale woodworking. It’s almost like it’s not even the same craft being performed. Orders of magnitude faster than any other method I could have imagined doing. Too cool.
Cool! Even a hundred years ago there was a machine for everything production. Ahh the post-industrial revolution at its beginnings.
The MC version of 'HOW IT'S MADE'. Things happen, the Thingy does stuff, a bit of magic, and you get a part..... DO MORE!
If the machines are no longer being manufactured, then how are modern chairs made? Obviously some are manufactured with old machines, but there must be a new method/machine too?
Thanks Matt for the insight into seat scoopers.
Their is a newer machine called a 'Master carver'. I have heard of it being used but it is not as quick or reliable. I think they date from the 60s-70s but I'm not sure. Its essentially multi head (maybe 10 heads) Pantagraph router. It has one station with a pattern of wood or metal and multiple stations that hold blanks and uses a centrally driven router like head to carve the shape think something like a prehistoric cnc. I personally haven't been able to get close enough to really get a feel for the specifics, a former coworker ran one for about 20 years and described it and said that depending on the patterns a cycle took 10 minutes to 1hr for most things. I work at a factory that makes upholstered furniture... I always find it amazing that most of our machinery was made before the 40s or 50s and is more reliable than the few newer versions of the same machine. Of the approximately 15 bandsaws we have all but 3 were built to run on lines shafts (1880s-> 1920s) and converted to electricity around the 30s or 40s... guess which bandsaws are the least reliable 🙃. We also have some machines that are roughly 75 to 100 years old, it trims one board end to a precise angle and bores for dowels they're purely mechanical and freak out the Osha inspector... cause once you step on the pedal it clamps down cycles regardless of what's there. There is a newer (1980s) version that does both ends at the same time but it's less reliable and takes longer to setup. My points is that they probably made a couple thousand of those machines when they were in production and every couple decades they just get refit with modern switches and maybe an extra guard to satisfy Osha.
That was really a great video. I never thought about the shaping of the butt seat area of a solid wood chair. The machine was very cool and was fast and efficient. That would be a great tool to have for sure in the kit making for chair seats. See you on the next one.
Matt, very interesting. I worked in an engraving shop making steel die engraving for printing. Some of the machines that actually printed on the paper were from 1875 or so. Big old monsters that worked better than the newer machines with fewer breakdowns. It was actually fun to work there.
So it made me happy to see your scooper machine.
awesome process
A solid workhorse there!!
Thanks for sharing!
Wow, what an amazing machine! Super interesting to see it working
That is cool..... My question is how often do the knives need to be sharpened and once sharpened how do they set them up again so the profile stays the same between batches.,,
I'm amazed that planing (shaping) across the grain didn't result in tearout. Fascinating machine.
i’m from massachusetts, lots of old machinery was produced in new england in the 20th century, built to work and last !
This is so cool! Can you please make a video about how you went from prototyping to sourcing manufacturers to help you make the chair kits a reality?
I used to use one just like it. We did red oak (puke) sets. The chip out was horrible. I spent more time on a slack belt sander with one hand pushing the profile down and the other sliding a tray back n forth to clean them up.
Now we need to see how to put a bigger motor into the McKnight Saddle Scoop Machine!
🤣🤣🤣
Very interesting. I have never seen one of those and the fact it’s probably a hundred years old is impressive craftsmanship
Thanks Matt, that was very interesting... I always knew that a special machine made the seat bottoms but never actually seen the actual machine that does it... It was very cool seeing a machine that's 100 years old still working flawlessly...
Very cool old machine. I’ve seen those in pictures but not working. Thanks
Awesome information!
That's amazing, who knew!
the pooper scooper butt rester thingy..Great Vid👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🍺🍺
Cool process
Great to see an unusual specific task machine at work! Who’d a thunk!
Amazing engineering
I'm happy to see production on the chair kits! I've been wanting style 4 maple for a while. Hope to see them in stock soon.
I often wonder how this was done thank for showing it
Never seen a machine like that before amazing how quick it is!
I’m tempted to build one!
I grew up about 15 miles from Gardner MA. It was known as Chair City.
That is very interesting. Thank you for the video.
So cool to see how this is accomplished. Great stuff.
Wow, I was actually wondering how this was done about a week ago. Thanks Matt.
Really cool, thanks Matt
Matt, Big Thanks! That were extreamly interesting. I thought it was done a lot differently. That is one heck of an amazing machine. Takes much of the hardest work of a wooden chair making only a few seconds, WOW. I wonder what a chair manufacturer does to make the scooped seat if they don't have one of these machines since they are not made anymore? Please tell the company Thanks from us for letting you film that process!
Thanks for the information!
Thanks Matt, that was very interesting to see. Looks to be very clean right off the machine, especially for cross grain cutting like that!
6:05 About ten seconds before you said it, I was thinking exactly "I would never have thought . . ."
As my mother used to say at any coincidence like that, "Great minds think alike."
Amazing! I had no idea.
When does yours get delivered? Would like to see the setup video! 😜
Very cool. Thanks!
Matt, can you possibly put out a video about your process of how you found these woodworking shops to do this manufacture for your kit products? I think it's pretty commonplace to find machine shops to make mechanical parts but it seems like a totally different animal to find woodworking job shops like this that can do production-level runs. When I think of production woodworking shops I think of things like cheap cabinets produced for Lowe's/Home Depot, or similar, where they're producing the whole product.
Thanks! I too have been wondering how these seats are made.👌🤗
What surprises me is that the cutting blade is situated along the grain, so it's cutting perpendicular to the grain.😳
That calls either for very frequent switching of the blades, or a lot of rejects because of tear-outs. Or am I missing something here?🤔👴🤓
I was surprised too. Can do several thousand on one sharpening and glass smooth finish even in figured wood
Fantastic video!
I am just blown away by this incredible piece of vintage ingenuity. Who’da Thunk? 🤔
Wow, impressive!
Really interesting and unexpected. I wonder how they did it in High Wycombe at the height of Windsor chair production. I think they started with a travisher while the wood was still wet, and the sculpting was deeper.
Great video as usual.
and so many young people think people a hundred years ago were stupid.
Interesting how cams do this. Thanks for the trouble.
Amazing machine. I couldn't see how it cuts the ridge in the front of the seat (leg scoops?) and maintains the curve at the back of the seat. Does the cutter mechanism tilt? Are the cams at front and back different profiles?
I didn’t get a look at the back so right now I’m going with magic
So how many chair kits are now sold each week?
8 on average
Can you make a chair kit in oak? My dinning room table and my kitchen table are both oak and I love your chair kits.
Style 5 is white oak
I wonder if a modern replacement for such a machine would be worth bringing to market.
This was super cool.
I never imagined there was a machine made to do this
Old school are the best!
I'd like to see the "scouped seat" used in a 2020s chair design.. challenge!
Big machines are doing the work of the craftsman but the craftsman always does a better, cleaner job if they are true to the profession.
At the art and craft shows, I would wonder what is art and what is craft. I concluded, if it is singular, it is art. If there are 100 identical things, it is craft.
Wait ... what ... you don't personally hand scoop all the seats you sell with a rusty hatchet? Very cool tool.
Amazing! Now I know how commercial chairs get there butt scooped!
Do they have someone in house that makes the blades that do the cutting!
Bet the metal in that extremely heavy blade costs some cheddar!
WOW!
Like that cam system! Who needs computers😁