Repair of a Classic Chair

One of our Knoll 1601 stacking chairs by Don Albinson (1964) developed a crack in the polypropylene back. Almost nothing sticks to polypropylene, and I knew that attempting to weld it would almost certainly look horrible. So I decided to make a repair embellishment rather than try to fix it invisibly.

I wanted to use leather laces to stitch the back together again. So I went to my leather lace bag and picked a few different types that I guessed were long enough. Then I laid them on the chair to get an idea how they would look.

The break measured 270mm long which made me think to divide by nine and get an even 30mm spacing. I used white tape to mark this out. 12mm on each side of the crack felt like the right distance for the holes.

I used an awl to dimple the marks for drilling. This keeps the drill bit from wandering off the marks. The leather I decided to use fit nicely through a 5/32” hole. I started with a smaller bit and then enlarged to 5/32”. This makes any inaccuracy smaller.

I guessed that the top would take the most stress so I started there. That way the knot would be at the bottom where there would be less stress. I pulled even amounts of the lace through the top two holes and then made the first X. Then I crossed the laces on the back side and came out the next pair of holes. Continued to the bottom. Finished with a snug square knot.

The ends are left long to complete the statement that repairs done well have nothing to hide.