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Today I will show you how to model the famous Rietveld Chair in SolidWorks. Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was one of the most outstanding furniture designers of the Netherlands. One of his most famous designs is the Red and Blue Chair. I thought it would be nice to write a SolidWorks tutorial about this chair.

In this tutorial you will learn how to use the following functions:

• 2D sketch
• Extruded Boss/Base
• Thin Extrude
• Multi-directed Extrude
• Mirror
• Chamfer

When the model is finished I will show you four different ways to add a color to your part.

Enjoy it!

Render of the final Rietveld Chair in PhotoView360

Open a new part with model units set to millimeters

Go to: File > New > Part 

Create a 2D sketch

Select the Right Plane in the feature tree (menu at the left side) and create a

sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

The display changes so the Right plane faces you.

Create a straight line

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Line or click at the Line icon 

Draw a diagonal line that starts at the origin. 

Change the length of the line into 900 mm by clicking at the dimension button

Add a Smart Dimension of 63 degrees to the line by clicking on the diagonal line and clicking on the horizontal plane as shown in the picture.

Create an Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the diagonal line

Change   into 179 mm

Enable the Thin Feature option

Change  into 15 mm

Make sure that the extrusion is directed upward and forward as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘‘Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the Right Plane and create a sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Create a diagonal Line

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Line or click at the Line icon 

Create a diagonal line as shown in the picture.

Change the length and position of the line by clicking at the dimension button 

Click at the Sketch button in the upper right corner close the 2D Sketch 

Create another Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the diagonal line

Change  into 210 mm

Enable the Thin Feature option

Change  into 15 mm

Make sure that the extrusion is directed upward and forward as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘‘Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Create a Chamfer

Go to: Insert > Features >Chamfer or click at the Chamfer icon 

Select the light blue edge as shown in the picture

Select the ‘’Distance to distance’’ option

Change  into 460 mm

Change  into 25 mm

Click OK 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the Right Plane and create a sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Create five fully defined squares

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Center Rectangle or click at the Center Rectangle icon 

Create the five squares as shown in the picture.

Change the length and position of the squares by clicking at the dimension button 

Click at the Sketch button in the upper right corner close the 2D Sketch 

Create another Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the diagonal line

Change  into 300 mm

Make sure that the extrusion is directed forward as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘’Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the blue surface and create a sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Corner Rectangle or click at the Corner Rectangle icon 

Create the rectangle as shown in the picture.

Change the length and position of the rectangle by clicking at the dimension button 

Create another Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the rectangle

Change  into 30 mm

Make sure that the extrusion is directed forward as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘’Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the blue surface and create a sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Corner Rectangle or click at the Corner Rectangle icon 

Create the rectangle as shown in the picture.

Change the length and position of the rectangle by clicking at the dimension button 

Create another Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the rectangle

Change  into 30 mm

Make sure that the extrusion is directed forward as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘’Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the blue surface and create a sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Corner Rectangle or click at the Corner Rectangle icon 

Create the rectangle as shown in the picture.

Change the length and position of the rectangle by clicking at the dimension button 

Create another Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the rectangle

Change   into 484 mm

Make sure that the extrusion is directed forward as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘’Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the blue surface and create a sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Corner Rectangle or click at the Corner Rectangle icon 

Create the rectangle as shown in the picture.

Change the length and position of the rectangle by clicking at the dimension button 

Create another Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the rectangle

Change  into 430 mm

Make sure that the extrusion is directed forward as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘’Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the blue surface and create a sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Corner Rectangle or click at the Corner Rectangle icon 

Create the rectangle as shown in the picture.

Change the length and position of the rectangle by clicking at the dimension button 

Create a multi-direction Extruded Boss/Base

Go to: Insert > Boss/Base > Extrude or click at the Extrude icon 

Select the rectangle

Change   into 655 mm

Enable the Direction 2 option

Change  into 35 mm

Make sure that the extrusions are directed as shown in the picture.

If the direction is wrong, change it with the ‘’Reverse Direction’’ button. 

Click OK 

Mirror and merge the chair

Go to: Insert > Pattern/Mirror > Mirror 

Mirror Face/Plane  : Right Plane

Select the “Bodies to Mirror” option

Select the Merge solids’’ option

Bodies to Mirror  : Select the blue bodies you want to mirror. Note: the ‘’Mirror and Merge’’ option is only available for ‘’half’’ parts as shown in the picture.

Click OK 

Mirror the remaining body

Go to: Insert > Pattern/Mirror > Mirror 

Mirror Face/Plane  : Right Plane

Select the “Bodies to Mirror” option

Bodies to Mirror  : Select the remaining body as shown in the picture. Uncheck the ‘’Merge Solids’’ option

Click OK 

Change the colors of the chair

Select a face of the chair and click at the Appearances button 

A small menu bar pops up as shown in the picture

There are four ways to add colors to your part.

Surface color     Provide one- or multiple specific surfaces with a color by clicking at the ‘’Face’’ option

Feature color     Provide one- or multiple specific features with a color by clicking at the ‘’Feature name’’ option

Body color     Provide one or multiple specific bodies with a color by clicking at the ‘’Body’’ option

Part color     Provide a complete part with a color by clicking at the ‘’Part Name’’ option

The color of a single face is leading above the feature color, the features color is leading above the body color and so on.

We will try to use all the different ways to add a color to this chair.

Change the Part color

Select an arbitrary face of the chair

Click at the Appearances button 

Click at the Part name 

Change the color into dark grey or black

Click OK 

Change a Body color

Select an arbitrary face of the back

Click at the Appearances button 

Click at the Body option 

Change the color into red

Click OK 

Change a Feature color

Select the top and one side face of the seat (Extrude-Thin2 and Chamfer1 in the feature tree)

Click at the Appearances button 

Click at the Features option 

Change the color into blue

Click OK 

(Because the seat is one single body you can also use the Body option)

Change a Face color

Select all the ends of the black beams as shown in the picture

Click at the Appearances button 

Click at the Face option 

Change the color into yellow

Click OK 

Congratulations, you just finished your own Rietveld Chair!

Well, that’s all for now. I hope you learned something from this tutorial! Feel free to leave a message below.

Click here to download the SolidWorks files of the Rietveld Chair