How environmentally friendly is all steel lawn furniture?

Posted on July 17, 2012 by admin

Hi there all y’all LCFs (That’s text talk for Lawn Chair Folks)!

Summer is moving right along and I sure hope it’s been a good one for you! I see where some areas of the country sorely need rain and I know what it’s like to look up at that bright blue sky only to see the odd little cotton ball cloud. Keep your hopes up because I can tell you, things will get better but like the old folks around here liked to say, “Well, it could be worse!” Let’s just trust in nature and let her do what she does best which often times just keeps us humans confused!

Speaking of nature. Have you ever given any thought to just how envirnmentally friendly your stamped metal lawn furniture really is? Take for example, it’s completely recyclable. You can take an old lawn chair, melt it down and make it over again, practically without loosing anything. Very few things are 100% recyclable but steel is right up there.

But what about the finish you ask? Is’t it harmful to the environment with all the toxins and stuff that’s in it? Since the early 1970′s, nearly all metal lawn furniture has been made using powder coat as the finish material. This is without a doubt our best finishing choice then as well as today. The powder has very few toxic solvents, it’s overspray if kept clean or cleaned can be reused and when fully cured poses no more of threat to the environment than cured latex house paint. It stays hard, resists the sun’s rays, is highly chemical resistant and protects the metal better than any other spray type applications.

Steel can be easily repaired. There are several types of welding procedures available to make an old lawn chair if not new, nearly new. Rusted metal can be cut away and new scabbed in. Holes can be filled, rust blasted away and new parts fitted from raw stock. However, this type work is a little costly if hired out but it is well within the scope of most DIY guys and gals that work on bikes, cars and motorcycles. Most of these folks will be pleased to barter their evening or weekend services if you ask nicely. A case of beer, bottle or two of nice wine or around here a platter of fried chicken will get you a couple of hours work in someones home shop. So if you choose to fix your dilapidated chairs and gliders, you’re saving the poor things from the scrap yard, keeping them in the family and slowing the use of resources. Now all you have to do is keep them clean and safe from falling branches and the like and they’ll serve you several more years.

But when the day comes and your old metal lawn furniture is too far gone even for the best of repair efforts then taking them to the metal scrapper is the best choice. Here, they’ll weigh your stuff and calulate the scrap price value based on current rates. You’ll get a weight ticket and the office clerk will pay you in cash or with a check. Then, they get lumped in with other metals of the same type and go off to the steel mill where they’ll get cut up and melted in a furnace to make new steel for all sorts of things. Who knows? Maybe your old chairs will be the fender on a new car or the cabinet for a washing machine or dryer or maybe even a new piece of furniture. Then the whole process begins anew!

So remember what the vintage car guys say “Save’m, don’t cruch’m!”

Have a save and happy rest of the summer!

Thanks!

Louis Torrans

How to date an old chair.

Posted on June 29, 2012 by admin

Hiddy Hi all you lawn chair cats!

I see today the weather folks all have just one thing to talk about. HEAT! Yeah, well, its summer and we all knew it was bound to happen. A heat wave has settled in on most of our Nation and Lordy me it is hot but here in Texas its just another day to us. If you’re in an area of the country that’s not used to this I surely hope it doesn’t last long before getting back to y’all’s normal. When folks ask me about Texas summers, I tell them it’s not for the uninitiated! You need to either be born here or get used to it by gradual degrees.

I had a call from very nice lady just this week and she was in the process of redoing her family’s old steel chairs. She had read my blog on finishing and they had chosen the powder coat route but needed a couple of questions answered about age. Before long, she had described for me chairs that were without question first generation Ed Warmack. They contained all the ingrediants I look for in dating a vintage chair. So the thought occured to me to give a slight lesson on how to date old stamped metal lawn chairs.

One of the first things to look for is in the frame. Almost all early lawn chairs utilized a one piece frame. This means the tube frame was made from a single length of pipe with no joints. This made a very strong frame and rust was not an issue for many years IF the tube frame did not receive too much water inside. However, once water entered the frame, it had no way to escape and corrosion began in earnest. A well kept vintage one piece frame chair used undercover should have a very solid frame but you still need to be cautious.

The next thing I look for in dating is the seat. If the seat has drain holes then you’ve surely got an early model. Again, most all early lawn chairs had certain tells and factory installed drain holes is one you can hang your hat on. Ed Warmack used holes in his early chair seats because he was just following behind the others. But, he soon learned those small holes designed to allow rain water to drain out with the idea of slowing down rust did exactly the opposite. You see, a hole by its very nature has a very sharp edge and these little guys just don’t hold paint worth a darn. So when you go to sit in your chair you’re wearing the paint off the holes from the very first. The paint just rubs off right at the hole and before long rust has gotten a foothold right where we don’t want it!

Ed designed what we call the “Tractor” seat about 1947. This is a seat with a slight dish molded to fit the sit’n area of a person. Then he formed in a little channel or canal which directs the water to the back of the chair and it just sort of seeps out between the back and the seat. This is why its so important to keep your lawn chairs washed out and free of leaves, pine straw and dirt. If allowed to accumulate, moisture can linger and rust moves in to help itself to our furniture.

Ed Warmack also changed the way we packaged lawn chairs in about 1949 when he developed the slip together three piece frame. Now he could put a whole chair in a box not much larger than a good sized briefcase and that meant more chairs in a rail car. Other chair makers used multi piece frames as well. Ed’s nemesis, Alvin Shott who at one time billed himself as the world’s largest manufacture of steel lawn furniture went to a three piece design but it had to be bolted together. Bolted style frames were inherently prone to rust and not as solid feeling when you were sitting in them.

So now you can look at a vintage chair and judge for yourself if its’s a true oldy or not. Drain hole chairs were made by various manufacterers up into the late 50′s but the numbers were gettin’ small. And the one piece frame didn’t last much past about 1955 from anybody.

Everyone have a happy and safe 4th!

Louis Torrans

Ed Warmack and the Metal Lawn Chair

Posted on June 15, 2012 by admin

Greetings and Salutaions lawn chair fans!

Goodness gracious its nearly summer already! Where has the time gone? But, summer is all about being outside and that’s kinda our deal don’t-ca-know! So, grab your favorite lawn chair, wipe out the bird droppings and tree sap and let me tell y’all a tale.

Back in about 1946 when WW II was coming to a close a gentleman by the name of Ed Warmack was thinking about what to do with his factory tucked back in the woods of Arkansas. He had been making all sorts of things for the Government to help with the war and now that it was peace time again he needed to return to domestic work. Mr. Ed knew about stamped porch chairs and how to make molds and tooling so he decided one of the first things he’d turn his attention to would include making his version of our beloved metal lawn chairs.

Ed made several contributions to the metal lawn chair industry. He designed the three piece frame with the slip in cross member. This let him pack more chairs into the rail cars he was shipping in from his plant there in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He also designed what we call the “tractor seat” which is the chair seat with the little channel in the back to allow rain water to drain away. Ed first used a flat seat with holes drilled in the middle to let the water drain but soon discoverd these holes didn’t hold paint too well and rust began quickly forming around them. The tractor seat designed solved his problem.

I meet Ed Warmack several years ago when he and his wife had made a gracious gift to a hospital in Little Rock doing research in extending ones life time by eating right. He didn’t know everything about lawn chairs I was wanting to learn but he knew everything about what he had done. He was a great source of period information and he had plenty of tales to allow about his time as one of the leading metal lawn chair manufacures in the US. Now this next part has been a little difficult for me to wrap my arms around but I’ve come to accpet it. Ed told me his daily production during building season for steel lawn chairs was up to 500 chairs PER HOUR! That is flat out turning and burning chair fans!

So, when you see an old metal chair like the ones we make in our Bellaire style, know that there was a fellow back in the hils of Arkansas in the late 1940s making them as fast as a donut shop makes donut holes! Ed sold his company in 1955 to two cousins that produced until 1970 when again the factory traded hands, selling to Flanders Industries which later became Lloyd Flanders. Flanders made steel lawn chairs until 1996, ending a 50 year run from the same factory with only 3 owners.

This and more tales and history is covered in my new book “The History of the Metal Lawn Chair….Here’s what we know now!”. Publishing is planned for later this summer so please check back for the announcement. If you have any history questions, please drop me a line.

Bye for now,

Louis Torrans