In San Francisco, Fyrn Bridges Previous Traditions and Excessive-Tech Manufacturing

Fourth-generation woodworker Ros Broughton began his career as a carpenter, completing high-quality projects for discerning clients in the San Francisco Bay Area. But it wasn’t long before he got tired of only working for the richest of the rich. As a bespoke carpenter, he says: “We got to make some incredible things, but at the end of the day few people would ever see it or enjoy it.” With the aim of making good design and quality craftsmanship accessible to more people, he co-founded in 2016 Co-founder David Charne Fyrn (pronounced ‘fear’), a furniture brand with a focus on craftsmanship.

Courtesy of FYRN

A fourth-generation woodworker

Broughton’s great-grandfather grew up on a farm in northeast Connecticut (affectionately referred to as the “quiet corner” of the state) and helped revitalize the Hitchcock Chair company, an early mass producer of fine furniture in the mid-19th century. Broughton credits this family connection with nurturing his own love of woodworking, craftsmanship and Yankee prowess.

While the Hitchcock company innovated in mass-producing interchangeable chair parts, Broughton’s company found its own fertile ground by combining the warmth of wood and the strength of metal. Broughton developed a system that uses CNC machined aluminum brackets to connect the wooden legs, seat and backrest. Inside the wooden frame there is another metal connection, hidden from view, which connects the wooden stretchers and legs and thus ensures stability. Broughton explains: “Because of the way chairs are used, placed on and moved about, they almost never stand on a perfectly flat surface, so they need to flex and flex and be durable.” The patented one developed by the Fyrn team Hardware allows for just the right amount of flexibility, allowing the user to easily swap out individual parts should they ever break.

Courtesy of ELIZABETH CARABABAS

A favorite of the restaurant industry

To prove their concept, the team tested early prototypes in one of the most challenging environments for a piece of furniture, a restaurant dining room. The Fyrn chairs were well received by customers and restaurateurs alike, and orders were soon pouring in from food service establishments across the Bay Area.

As Broughton walks through the workshop in San Francisco’s Mission District where Fyrn began producing chairs, he explains that the system’s machined components required extremely precise manufacturing (specific tolerances are 4/1000th of an inch, which is more appropriate for the aerospace than is typical for woodworking). To reliably achieve this level of precision, the team had to build a set of 30 fully custom machines to mill, drill and cut every element of the Fyrn chair. Product Development Manager, Derek McCall, demonstrated how one of the machines works by inserting a piece of milled hardwood into an automated, pneumatic milling and drilling jig that grips the stick and, with a whirr and hiss, opens the opening for one of the signature clamps von Fyrn before folding the stick back up for the worker to pick up.

Courtesy of FYRN

increase craft

Although the brand describes its products as artisanal, the reality is a bit more complicated. The precision engineering required by the Fyrn system means there is no room for the subtle imperfections of craftsmanship. But with their exposed pipes, wires, gauges and dials, the line of machines (custom-built by Broughton and McCall) feels a little more Burning Man than Henry Ford.

Today, in a building full of artists’ studios, this workshop is used to develop new products and refine new ideas. Fyrn recently opened a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility near Reno, Nevada to meet demand for the brand’s signature chairs. And while restaurants should really only be an experiment to test shelf life, hospitality is a key revenue stream for the growing company.

The company is also expanding its offering with a range of nesting tables, launched in 2022, and a café table, which debuted at ICFF this year. Broughton explains that the café table fills an unmet need of the brand’s first supporters – chefs and restaurant owners. “We’re excited to introduce beautiful, well-made tables for a function that’s often overlooked,” he says.

Previous Next

• Courtesy of FYRN
• Courtesy of FYRN
• Courtesy of FYRN
• Courtesy of FYRN