apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Two suggestions:
1. - It's a little hard to tell from the photos, but the armrests look to be something that a metal fabricator might be able to duplicate without too much trouble. Look for someone who does custom angle iron. The trick would be attaching them (weld it on?) and finishing them.

2. - This might be considered overkill, but if all else fails you might want to consider rapid prototyping (especially if you're looking for a textured surface). Find yourself someone with rudimentary CAD skills and get them to draft the shape you're looking for. There are a number of companies that will take these 3D models and manufacture them (Google: "rapid prototype"). I'm an engineer and we used to rapid prototype custom parts for many of our projects back in school. Something as simple as these armrests probably wouldn't cost you more than your first two children...and maybe your little dog, Toto, too.

i have a similar question--i found a fake one on the streets of the Tenderloin in poor condition, beat up, w/ the silver flaking off, then like an idiot had it in the back yard + now it's horribly rusted. ooops!
Is there a miracle way i could remove the rust + re-finish it, + replace the faux leather?
(i should trash it as a lost, shameful mistake, but hate to throw so much away; i guess it could wind up as scrap pieces.)

It the chairs are fake, I'd trash them. I had one, and the armrests were leather, same as the seat and back. Of course, the chair fell apart in no time flat, and I tossed it in the dumpster.

We have the same fakes. And yeah, the armrests fell off at least 1 of the 4 we have. So far, only 1 is in sit-worthy condition. I think we might still have the broken ones somewhere; I'll have a look-round tomorrow. If there are still useable arms that can be salvaged, I'll let you know.

monika-

thanks so much, that would be greatly appreciated! although i know that perhaps these chairs aren't worth the effort, i still love mine. well, and i'm poor and can't afford anything else. but i am more than willing to pay you for the armrests and obviously shipping.

-liz

Hi Liz,

I checked and we have three of our four chairs out of commission. So, we have three pairs of armrests which we do not need.

They are in OK shape. Send me your address and will ship them to you on the house if you do not mind them coming by regular parcel mail. I'll pick the best two and you can decide if they are good enough - they should be.

Just email me directly with your coordinates. Bye for now,

Monika (monika@web.net)

Yet another "my cheap knock-off fell apart" story.

Hmmmmm... wonder what THAT tells us?!? :)

in defense of my chairs, they weren't horrible when orriginally made around 20 years ago, but haven't been taken care of. there's a small amount of rust, etc. but hey, better than the cardboard boxes i would be sitting on otherwise.

Liz -

Haven't heard from you; if you want those armrests, just email me your coordinates.

I found your post. I just got 4 reproductions of the chair as well. That's too bad to hear that they fall apart easily. The ones I was given are about 15+ years old. still have arm rests but the leather dried out and is ripping alittle around the edges where it's been distressed. Anyone know where to find replacement leather seats for the chair? Thanks.

I recently picked up 4 similar chairs (real or fake, unknown) once of them has a slightly damaged seat area, and a couple of them are missing the plastic snap on footings that protect floors, also one is missing one of the metal cross support bars below the seating area. I would be grateful to anyone willing to send me, or allow me to get parts from their damaged, old, or otherwise no longer needed Stam style chair.