Thoughts on making a kid-sized Morris Chair?

[ModernistWoodworker]

Im thinking about making the Morris Chair project with the guild, but scaling it to 1/2 or 2/3 size for my 2 year old son's room.  Aside from scaling all the parts smaller, any thoughts as to the difficulties I might have in translating the guild build plan to something more kiddie-sized?

[thewoodwhisperer]

I can't see any major red flags and scaling it down should work. But instead of scaling everything down across the board, make sure you keep in mind common thicknesses. For instance, I wouldn't go less than 3/4" for the rail thickness, not only for convenience but strength. Things like the slats can come down to 1/4" instead of 1/2". And the bent back rails can probably just be cut form solid stock instead of being made from bent lamination. 

[thewoodwhisperer]

I gave up a while ago trying to protect my son's head from edges and corners. As long as they aren't razor sharp...... That kid would find a way to get a bruise even if he were wrapped in a bubble wrap suit. 

[Trip]

==>but scaling it to 1/2 or 2/3 size for my 2 year old son's room

It'll look great in a kid's room... But...

 

Having built a Morris chair many years ago, they are a big investment in time. They're deceptive and a lot more effort than you might think... Not difficult, just a lot of effort. I built mine pre-domino*, so maybe today I could push one out pretty fast, but still... I'm not building-along with Marc and don't know his design approach, but I suspect even a simplified Morris chair will be quite an investment... Not saying it wouldn't look great or wouldn't be a great build, but...

 

*Note: The Domino is a game changer in my shop... I may just divide my woodworking into Before-Domino(BD) and Anno Domino(AD) or perhaps the more Politically Correct (PC)  version, Before the Domino Era (BDE) .. 

[ModernistWoodworker]

Complexity not so much a concern.  Im the guy who gave kickback in Episode #176 wanting to pick up skills to build Art Deco furniture, so I've been actually looking for a good project to learn bent lamination.  Also, given that Im just wrapping up the Roubo build, pretty much every other project will seem smaller 

 

Maybe a good place to start will be to take the Sketchup file, scale the parts in the program, and see how changing the part thicknesses to a minimum (as Marc suggested) changes how balanced the design looks...or makes it look out of proportion.

 

For the templates, wondering if just changing the scaling in the printer dialog will get me something thats accurate.

[thewoodwhisperer]

Well all of the curves in this project are either stand-alone or they are the starting point that dictates the curve to the rest of the project. So even if your curve changes to some extent on resizing, it won't have much of a detrimental effect unless it looks "off" visually.

[AMarshall]

... instead of scaling everything down across the board, make sure you keep in mind common thicknesses. For instance, I wouldn't go less than 3/4" for the rail thickness, not only for convenience but strength. Things like the slats can come down to 1/4" instead of 1/2". And the bent back rails can probably just be cut form solid stock instead of being made from bent lamination. 

 

Maybe a good place to start will be to take the Sketchup file, scale the parts in the program, and see how changing the part thicknesses to a minimum (as Marc suggested) changes how balanced the design looks...or makes it look out of proportion.

 

For the templates, wondering if just changing the scaling in the printer dialog will get me something thats accurate.

 

In Sketchup, scaling each part individually is gonna be a major pain the neck.  It's super easy to rescale the whole model in about 5 clicks, which will keep everything proportional.  Here are the steps:

1. Open the model (Hah!)
2. Using the tape measure tool, measure a dimension that is known.  You might want to draw a new line somewhere that is exactly 10 inches long, for example - and measure this.  Or find an easy part to measure on one of the exploded views.
3. If you did step 2 correctly, you'll get a number in the status bar in the bottom right of the screen.
4. IMMEDIATELY type the target size that you'd like this measurement to be, and hit enter.  For example, I want that 10" line to be 7.5 inches instead.
5. Sketchup will ask if you want to resize the whole model.  Yes!

If you choose wisely, you'd probably be able to keep the thicknesses workable for most pieces.  For example, a scaling factor of .75 would take the rails from 1" thick to 3/4", and the side and back slats from 1/2" to 3/8".

 

PM me if you need help with this!

[ModernistWoodworker]

Thank you Aaron and Marc for weighing in on this thread. Aaron you truly are a black belt Sketchup Master. I've just been learning it myself to design an Art Deco styled leg vise chop for my Roubo build...next step is figuring out how to import into Vectric Cut3D so I can CNC carve the chop on a ShopBot I have access to at TechShop, will post a video when I'm done.

http://www.techshop.ws/take_classes.html?storeId=4&categoryId=27

Anyway, can't wait to give your advise a try. Will let you guys know how it goes...if I execute it OK I'm happy to share the revised plan with other parents/grandparents in the guild.