Good Chair

What makes a good chair? Hmmm theoretically, it should have 450-460mm seat height, a 30 degrees recline of the backrest, (the recline part is very important especially if the chair would be used as a dining/banquet chair, this is done in order to give the chair maximum support and balance to avoid the chair from tipping off and the person from falling down). The material of the chair should be solid wood (well, it depends on the design, but typically a chair SHOULD be made of solid, quarter cut wood). There are a lot of chairs in the market that are imported from Malaysia/Thailand that uses rubber wood, at first I thought these chairs were no good because the weight of these chairs were so light! But I researched on this wood specie and found out that rubber wood is also considered a hard wood and is of the same type as maple wood, these woods are said to be environmentally friendly as these wood materials are mainly from the trees in rubber plantations that have matured and were about to be discarded.

How to distinguish a good chair from a poorly constructed one? Just look under the chair, a good chair would have these qualities:
1) Four corner blocks on the 4 corners of the chair for ample support
2) Tongue and groove found on the 4 sides of the chair to support the corner blocks
3) 3 screws fastening the corner block into place

Most of the imported chairs from Thailand do have corner blocks and screw fastener, but no tongue and groove on the sides. Hmmm…Average price for average workmanship I guess?

Some things to consider when buying chairs: would you go all-solid wood? Or have an upholstered seat cushion? (ofcourse, having some upholstery would be more butt friendly but then you would have to deal with possible stains from spills) fabric or leather? Choices choices!