I discontinued my bestselling chair finishes at the height of their popularity.

Rod+Weave Chair. Copper plating over polished steel frame, veg tan leather. 2014

In 2014, when I re-settled in Long Beach, I made a few versions of the Rod+Weave Chair to show in the Architectural Digest Home Design Show in NYC.

I decided to get a frame plated in copper. The photo above is the very first version.

I made the frames myself, using the same solid hex rod steel that I drove down from Portland - where I found the stock originally.

Pause - The hex rod that I use to make these frames was originally found at a salvage yard in Portland, Or.

The sticks are 12 feet long, and were $5 each.

Each chair frame cost me $10 in material.

The first official purchase order I received from Anthropologie, 10 chairs - all from that original stock.

$10 a frame in material.

Unpause -

The Copper Frames! Back in LA.

You can make anything in LA in any finish.

I found a plater, I dropped off the frames. The plater polished the frames and then plated them.

And then lacquered over the freshly plated finish.

Because all these metal finishes tarnish, corrode, change color, and (don’t say it) patina over time.

So almost all decorative finishes - finishes on the surface - need a clear coat/protective layer so that the finish doesn’t tarnish.

Copper tarnishes fast.

Brass tarnishes fast.

Polished copper looks like Rose Gold.

And Rose Gold sounds luxury AF.

We went on to make a lot of these chairs over the next 2-3 years.

Our fabrication partners came up with production methods to streamline the process.

They pre-cut the hex rod to each component, then placed the rod on a sled to go through a wide belt sander.

The sled would cradle the hex rod - get sent through the sander, then rod would get rotated to the next face, and it would get sent through the sander again.

This essentially smoothed out any pits, or tooling marks in the steel to prepare for polish.

180 grit or something.

Then each component would go a couple miles down the road to a polishing vendor who would polish each component to a mirror finish.

Then the components would go back to the metal fabricators and into the tooling and jigs to form the precut lengths into parts.

The matching arm rest pieces would enter the bending machine - 2 bends each, then done.

Those parts would then only need minor touch-ups from tooling marks.

Then the seating portion - 2 bent components - the sides of the seat and back.

2 cross bars.

All the components would get placed into a jig for the welder.

Tig welded.

Then final clean up of those welded areas.

Then wrapping the frame so it stays perfect in transit 10 miles to the platers.

THEN the frames are ready to the electro-plate.

Brass Plated frames

The metallic finishes looked so good with every leather.

We literally could not go wrong.

Polished brass, antique brass, polished copper AKA rose gold.

We even had a few customers who order unfinished brass.

Which meant - they wanted the brass plating with no clear coat. They wanted the finish to patina.

They wanted a ‘Living Finish.’

The problem is - plated brass is not the same as solid brass, or bronze, or copper.

It’s sooooooooooooooooo thin.

And it has lacquer on top.

Lacquer is not a great finish for furniture.

It doesn’t jive well with our body oils.

It’s down at the bottom of the list of good finishes for a high touch area - like the armrest of a chair.

Gold Leaf + Lacquer does not equal DURABLE.

To clarify what I mean by Gold Leaf.

Electro Plating is basically electro chemically bonding THE THINNESS of Gold Leaf to another metal surface.

That’s the visual.

When you see “PLATED” you need to think “GOLD LEAF.”

Which is why plated jewelry needs to get “re-dipped” every few years.

That dip is electro-plating.

So if your jewelry needs to get re-dipped - then your chair frame needs to get re-dipped too.

If you enjoy using the chair, you are going to touch it a lot.

And what happens to things that get touched a lot?

Well, let’s just say, they don’t stay the same.

And they don’t stay the same faster in areas of high-touch.

And you can’t polish a plated finish, because it is as thin as gold leaf - you’ll polish it right off!

The lacquer starts to get gummy, and then the plating starts to flake off.

Flake. Peel.

The fidgety kind. The kind that makes you want to peel a bit more when you sit in it.

There isn’t really anything charming about it - it just looks bad.

If there are any pin holes in the lacquer finish, air will get underneath and start to tarnish the frame too.

I had to “liquidate” a lot of inventory for tiny little freckles all over the frames.

The really unfortunate thing, is that the lacquer finish really complicates the process of refinishing the frame. Because the lacquer needs to be fully chemically stripped and cleaned (ew) - and it’s never quite as good as the first run, so a layer of impurities get embedded into another layer of plating, and another round of heavy chemical waste management that needs to go somewhere..,

I discontinued plated finishes after 3 years.

It was just long enough to see how the finishes held up in the real world - where people touch and use things.

BECAUSE - say it together now - Decorative Finishes are for Decorative Objects!

E