It has a lot of i.d. that it could be an original – but the back shell wood was pressing against the seat shell wood which seemed a collapsed rubber issue. I disassembled it to find no rubber or remnants, only one 2×2 steel angles 9″ or 9 1/2″ long with 2 holes to attach each of the leather wrapped plywd arms and 2 pairs of holes, 2 for attaching backrest shell and 2 attaching seat shell in each bracket. Each hidden by arm. But there are pairs of holes in both wood back and wood seat shells that had simulated wood oval screw covers. Does this make it a knock-off or was a past repair made and they eleminated any rubber mounts just metal angle arm attachments screwd to wood and bolted/screwed to shells? The ottoman and chair camel colored leather is intact and restoreable. Ottoman is equal size of seat with 4 legs (chair has 5). The shell back resting on seat shell could be lifted up to its correct configuration so I presume any slight enlargement of screw holes, etc., accounts for the backrest shells drop. Seat backrest pair of brackets may need some snugging up. How do I pop off (remove) seat backs therefrom?

Suggestions are very welcome.

Our company restores several Eames Lounge 670 chairs with broken shock mounts every month, and our experience has been that we have repaired a significant portion that were pre-1970. We cannot see any difference in the shock mount design.

It is a simple fact about thermoplastics or rubber, that they do oxidize, and when they do, their strength declines logarithmically with time, meaning that when they oxidize significantly, they fall apart very quickly. And we have repaired chairs 5 years old with broken shock mounts, although that was for glue failure, and maybe a whale sat in it, I don’t know, it wouldn’t be tactful to ask.

Olek Lejbzon & Co. (located at 425 Ferry St., Newark, NJ), has been restoring furniture since 1950. We have been restoring Eames Lounge Chairs since about 1960. We can restore it with the original design shock mounts with a 3 yr. warranty, or with our proprietary shock mount, with a 10 year warranty. The two mounts are indistinguishable unless you probe the material or remove the mounts from the chair.

Concerning the shockmount types, we can use the neoprene/steel threaded plate sandwich design that Herman Miller uses, but our opinion is that that design is the biggest flaw we have ever seen in modern furniture, and should not be repeated, though Herman Miller seems to have learned from G.M. and profits from planned obsolescence/failure. Their lounge chairs have never carried a warranty exceeding 3 1/2 years, all their other furniture a 15 yr. warranty. There is no mystery as to what Herman Miller is telling us.

A superior, proprietary design is to use ebonized solid beech wood plates with the same radiused shapes (in three dimensions) as the neoprene originals, with holes drilled into the beech plates, into which T-nuts are inserted, with neoprene bushing around the T-nuts, to provide the shock mount flexibility, without its fallibility. The glue joint between beech and the plywood is trouble free for many more decades than Herman Miller’s design. We have repaired many Eames lounge chairs over the past fifteen years with our original shock mount design, and have not had any failures. You cannot tell the difference by looking or feeling the improved mounts, they are finished by our artists to match the original neoprene.

You can send the lower back shell and the seat shell to us disassembled in a box, and we will repair and ship disassembled, for you to reassemble (simple screws).
We will repair and turn around the order in less than four weeks.

We also repair shattered lower backs, retaining only the original back veneer, and rebuilding the plywood internally, layer by layer around the broken area, with 1″ wide steps from layer to layer. The repair is difficult to see, and has the strength of the original chair. You won’t be sitting on egg shells after Olek repairs your broken Eames Lounge Chair.