Getting to Know Jasper Chair Company

Jasper Chair Company, Inc. was founded in 1921 out of a need for high quality office and library seating. Immediately Jasper Chair was known as the place to find “the right chair at the right price”. Over the years, several lounge seating lines were added as we expanded into the college dormitory market. Eventually, the library and dormitory markets became the majority of our total business and in 1986, management decided to concentrate on expanding sales in those areas and discontinue the office seating lines. As it turned out, many of the library seating lines became extremely sought after in the restaurant market. With the expansion of those lines and the addition of some new lines, we have been able to round out our production year and are currently manufacturing in excess of 130,000 units per year.

Our facility is located on the east side of Jasper and consists of 23,000 square feet of lumber processing areas, 185,000 square feet of manufacturing area, and 38,000 square feet of warehouse space. If you visited our facility, you would first notice the large stacks of lumber to the west of the plant. We believe the first step in manufacturing a great chair begins with the best raw materials. That is why we purchase over 2 million board feet of the finest Northern Grown Red Oak and Hard Maple each year. All of the lumber is graded, sorted, and stacked before being stored in one of three air-drying buildings. Some lumber may be required to air-dry for as long as a year. A percentage of this air-dried lumber will be selected for steam bending. Steam bending is a lost art form in which the lumber is saturated with steam until the wood fibers are pliable. The pieces are then placed into hydraulic presses that bend the wood into various shapes. The presses are then heated to dry the lumber to a point of equilibrium at which point the lumber will retain the shape that it has been bent. The whole process is very labor intensive and costly, but there is no substitute for steam bent chair parts. They have a tremendous strength advantage over plywood parts, but because of the difficulty and cost, most manufacturers avoid using them. The balance of the lumber, once it reaches the proper moisture content, is now ready to be kiln-dried to perfection. Finally, the lumber is surfaced and it’s ready to be processed in the rough mill.

We begin the machining process by scanning and optimizing each board before it is processed through the gang rip saw. This assures that the maximum yield is profited from every single board. Once through the gang rip saw, we again scan the individual boards for defects using laser, x-ray, and color scanners. This results in an enormous savings in our raw materials cost. After the lumber has been reduced into dimension stock, our team of craftsmen begin sawing, boring, doweling, and sanding the stock into chair parts. Our Machine Department consists of the finest machinery built from all over the world. Most of the machines are CNC controlled to allow for quick, accurate setups. This allows us to keep up with today’s demands without sacrificing quality.

Assembly operations are then executed by our highly trained employees. During the entire assembly process, constant quality checks are randomly being conducted. This ensures that the proper amount of glue is being used and that all screws are correctly installed. Once the chair frame is assembled, we inspect the entire frame before it receives a final sanding operation to prepare it for finishing. The next step in manufacturing a quality chair is the finishing process. We begin with multiple staining operations followed by a layer of High Solids Catalyzed Varnish Sealer. The chair is then sealer sanded and a final layer of High Solids Catalyzed Varnish Topcoat is applied. Finally, the chair is inspected once again before the upholstery, if applicable, is attached and then properly packaged for shipment.