science

Shaker tilting chair

Shaker tilting chair is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Shaker tilting chair rather than just read about it. In short: The Shaker tilting chair – named for its ball bearing or ball and socket button mechanism assembled to the back two legs of a wooden chair – allowed a person to lean back in the chair without slipping or scraping the floor. Description The device was a new practical way of being able to lean back without slipping while sitting in a common Shaker ladder-back wooden chair.

Key takeaways

Shaker tilting chair belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Shaker tilting chair to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Shaker tilting chair from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Shaker tilting chair – named for its ball bearing or ball and socket button mechanism assembled to the back two legs of a wooden chair – allowed a person to lean back in the chair without slipping or scraping the floor.

Description The device was a new practical way of being able to lean back without slipping while sitting in a common Shaker ladder-back wooden chair. It prevented damage to carpets and scraping the floors usually caused by the back legs of chairs when they slipped. The main feature of the Shaker ladder-back chair was a tilting ball and socket joint mechanism installed on the bottom of the two rear legs to keep the leg bottoms level. Normally the inflection of the chair feet edges into wooden floors would cause deep scratches and into carpets would cause puncture tear holes. The ball joint mechanism idea would prevent unnecessary punctures and stress to the chair components because the chair feet were kept level and flat even though the chair was tilted back. Initially the swivel idea was developed using just wooden balls around 1834. It was later realized that this new concept for tilting caused major stress to the chair. More repair engineering work was required than initially foreseen. This was due to the weakening of the leg caused by drilling involved in installation of the wooden ball joint mechanism. Ultimately, the wooden ball concept was discarded and the production of this device ceased. Brother George O'Donnell of Shaker Village in New Lebanon, New York came up with a strong metal attachment device in 1852. It replaced the wooden ball bearing that was inserted into the wooden legs and secured with a leather strap. The metal ball-bearing mechanism was patented by him. It consisted of brass ferrules and balls. It was a practical strong metal attachment to the back two legs of wooden chairs to allow the sitter to tilt back without gouging the floor. A version of O'Donnell's tilt device is still being used on chairs in the twenty-first century. The Shakers manufactured the "tilting chair" for sale in the 1870s to people outside their community labeling them with "Shaker's Trade Mark, Mt. Lebanon, N.Y." which was the place of the Shaker Village in the state of New York. The tilting buttons on the two back legs that made it a tilting chair were sometimes referred to as "tilters", "swiveling tilter" or "ball and socket feet" that allowed the flat underside of the foot to stay level when the chair was tilted back. In a catalog of New Lebanon Shaker chairs for sale it was an additional price of twenty five cents for button joint tilts to be added to a chair. It was noted by historian Kassay that the general philosophy of a diner "tilting chair" was out of place in the Shaker community, as Believers were not allowed the luxury of after-meal relaxation time.

References

Notes

Citations

External links

Patent model chair for button joint tilters by George O. Donnel of New Lebanon, New York, 1852 "Shaker Tilting Chair, watercolor and graphite on paper, Rendered by John W. Kelleher (artist)". Index of American Design. From the Tour: Shaker Crafts from the Index of American DesignShaker Tilting Chair rendition National Gallery of Art. 1937. Archived from the original on June 4, 2015. Retrieved June 2, 2015. "A chair button, used on tilting chairs". The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc., Historic Map Works. 1921. Retrieved June 2, 2015.

Illustrations

Shaker tilting chair: Shaker ladder chair with ball swivels on rear legs for tilting — Shaker ladder chair with ball swivels on rear legs for tilting

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Shaker tilting chair

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Shaker tilting chair claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Shaker tilting chair before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Shaker tilting chair ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Shaker tilting chair

In research: Shaker tilting chair appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Shaker tilting chair in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Shaker tilting chair is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 19th-century inventions, Chairs, Shaker inventions, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Shaker tilting chair outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Shaker tilting chair in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Shaker tilting chair means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Shaker tilting chair out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Shaker tilting chair in simple terms?

Why does Shaker tilting chair matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Shaker tilting chair?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Shaker tilting chair.