Rebuilding Artist Benches (New Thread)

[Robert Goodale]

Has anyone looked into to rebuilding artist benches?  I have a number of
them that not only need recovering (upholstery or "Nauga" if you will),
but also have various problems with the adjusting mechanism. 

A common problem that I have found with many older benches is that they
start rocking on the "X" lifting support, and many simply become
difficult if not impossible to turn the handles to adjust. Thus the
question is: is it a worth-while proceedure (cost vs replacement) to
strip and recover these things with simi-professional results, along
with the needed mechanical repairs? Is there a source out there for
parts? If so, has anyone successfully built new benches from scratch
with new parts? Just occured to me like a "worth-while" topic for
discussion.

On a related topic, for practice and studio use, does anyone have
comments on the cheeper artist benches out there (AKA the "Petite"
benches such as that found on P. D-1 in the PianoTech catalogue). Do
these hold up as well under regular use, or are they better suited for
the occassional home user? 


Rob Goodale, RPT