Morris Chair Pair

[Chestnut]

8 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Drew the chairs are looking great!! Is there an accent piece in the arms? 

 

Yes i used a piece of walnut to separate the regular cherry from the curly cherry i used on the tops of the arms. I didn't have 8/4 curly and didn't feel like wasting a ton of it for arm laminations.

 

10 hours ago, Tom King said:

Looking great!   I like everything about it.

On setting deadlines:   I don't do deadlines.  "Don't do" means: don't think about it, much less try to predict a finishing point, so there is nothing to discuss about a deadline.   I don't do deadlines for paying jobs, and I damn sure don't do deadlines for working on my own stuff.  Ask my Wife.

One of the most common questions I get asked is when will it be finished.  My answer is always the same.  It will be finished when there is nothing left to do on it.  The other question that goes along with that is how much will it cost.  I've always done it the same way.  I find out what it costs to build something by building it.  We'll know when it's finished.

Yeah i like having the deadline. It gives me something to shoot for otherwise i'd have a shop full of half completed projects.

[Alan G]

Deadlines.....Boooooooooo!

[bleedinblue]

On 1/14/2018 at 9:05 PM, Chestnut said:

The debate. Can i just just a 10" piece and cut the top and bottom out of the 1 piece with out making a bunch of weird shaped off cuts that are basically firewood. YES! After i made the top and bottom form i set them on the ply and put a good 1/4" between them measured from one side to the other and get 9.25" i rounded that to 9.5" and was able to get  all of the layers i needed for the template from just over a half a sheet of ply. Below is a picture of the two arcs drawn from the top form and bottom form with 1/16" separating them. There was no appreciable difference in the gap from one end to the other. CAD told me the gap if perfectly lined up would only be 0.034" or 1/32"

 

Here they are cut apart.

 

How long did you make the form?  I need to download the template, but it sounds like Marc made his 36" long...did you go shorter?

[Chestnut]

1 hour ago, bleedinblue said:

How long did you make the form?  I need to download the template, but it sounds like Marc made his 36" long...did you go shorter?

The plywood rectangles i cut were 36.5" x 9.5" maybe 37". I took the paper template and measured the size i'd need and then cut out the size. I wish i had better faith in my form because i'd offer it out to people but i don't think i did the best job with it. I also will need it somewhat soon for the sofa/couch i plan to make based off the same design as the chairs.

[bleedinblue]

Gotcha.  In my head I thought it would be closer to 24", so a half sheet of ply would produce eight layers.  I bought a half sheet today, but I have enough scrap to build the form I'm sure.

Where do you think you went wrong?  Was the curve not consistent? 

[Chestnut]

5 hours ago, bleedinblue said:

Gotcha.  In my head I thought it would be closer to 24", so a half sheet of ply would produce eight layers.  I bought a half sheet today, but I have enough scrap to build the form I'm sure.

Where do you think you went wrong?  Was the curve not consistent? 

Yeah i think it's kind of a wavy curve there are some spots where the plys pulled close and others where there are more noticeable lines but it's inconsistent. It's the one thing that i'd want a CNC for i guess.

[Chestnut]

Last week i worked on chopping the shoulders on the rear legs to mate with the curve of the arms. It was quite boring work and i didn't take any pictures of it. To make things more enjoyable i had my work tunes on and a TV show playing on the laptop.

Here is an image of the 2 sides and the arms before i started cutting the through tenons.

Next up was the through tenon on the arms. I had to make 2 temples for mine. This was because the leg i had to remake was slightly difference in size than the other 7. Instead of trying to trim things and make them all the same size i just made a 2nd template for it. I did a test run on a scrap piece.

There were some gaps so i added a couple pieces of blue tape. The oak had some checking on the end and that's where the split came from it was not because it was too tight. After i added the tape i did a 2nd trial run mostly to practic the chiseling some more and it fit perfect. I was to excited to get an arm done i forgot to take a picture.

First arm went smoothly. I recently bought a couple Narex mortise chisels and I'm glad i did the last time i did through mortises the edge of my bench chisels always dented the sides of the through mortise making them look gappy in the corners. I didn't have trouble with that this time. I drooped the arm in place to mark the position of the rear tenon. I made a mistake on the first one and placed the rear tenon in too far so the arm is skewed slightly from front to back. I fixed this on the other arm but now i'm concerned that the back is going to be too wide on one of the chairs.

Chopping the rear mortise was a fun the angle and the setup offered some new challenges but it wasn't so difficult as to be frustrating. The curved shoulders are by far the most difficult part of this project so far.

Rear mortise complete i dropped the arm in place and it fit but not really the best. I took a picture of the better side, but the other side has a bit bigger gaps that don't close with clamping pressure. I'll just make sure that this side of this chair gets positioned against a wall.

[wdwerker]

No one will notice if you can keep your mouth shut. But I understand how hard it can be to do that. Telling us is one thing, not telling friends and family is the hard part.

[Chet]

Second to the last picture looks like a pretty nice fit.

36 minutes ago, wdwerker said:

not telling friends and family is the hard part.

One of the hardest skills to develop as a woodworker. 

[bleedinblue]

Nice.  I think you're past the biggest hump of the project. 

[bleedinblue]

And the more I look at the walnut in the lamination the more I like it.  I'm not planning on it, but if I get in a pinch and need the extra thickness that'll be my fix no doubt.

[pkinneb]

Drew great job on the arm lamination's they really blend nicely! Project is coming along nicely.

[Chestnut]

Thanks guys. I will show some of the bigger flaws after i attempt a bit of a fix on them but unless i point them out few people are going to notice.  One thing that i noticed is that the epoxy needs to be spread thin. When i was chopping the through mortises i found a couple areas with thicker gaps. I remember pooling some epoxy in those areas so it has me wondering if because it's a bit thicker than regular glue that it didn't squeeze out?

2 hours ago, bleedinblue said:

And the more I look at the walnut in the lamination the more I like it.  I'm not planning on it, but if I get in a pinch and need the extra thickness that'll be my fix no doubt.

I did it as a cheat so i could put the curly lamination on the arms and not have the sides look very obviously different. The curly cherry i have is quite a bit darker than the fresh cut stuff the rest of the chair is made from. I don't need to tell you guys that it's obvious even in the pictures. I want the leather to be a dark brown similar to the walnut. I think the lamination in the arm and the leather being close in color will be a nice tie.

[Chestnut]

This is getting fun again. Finished the last of the arm mortises. I did all the through mortises with a router and a template bit. It's by far the easiest way to do a through mortise in my opinion. Though after this project i could probably do it fully by hand and not really be phased by it. The rear mortises were a lot of fun.  I used my veritas marking gauge which was VERY helpful.

After setting the inside to 11/16th i grabed the width from the tenon and then top that to the arm.

Drilled out some waste because i don't have an apprentice.

One thing @bleedinblue The walnut lamination was awesome for the non through tenons. I just drilled until i got some walnut shavings and then stopped. No depth worries. With well marked out knife lines the mortises was easy to chop. This one is the best I've done and it looked so good i have to show it off. No one else will see it when it's together and telling people the arm is held on with a nice had cut mortise makes everyone elese's eyes glaze over.

Here are some close up pictures of the gaps. The camera makes the look smaller but a small amount of clamping pressure closes them so all in all i'm VERY happy. I'm trying my best but i'm not going to beat my self up this project is complicated enough.

Some more pictures of the through tenon and the arms. For any one taking on this project the through tenons are super easy with Marc's method and a 1/2" mortise chisel. If you can do the curved shoulder on the rear leg you can do the through tenon. Don't pass up on trying it.

 

[gee-dub]

Moving along.  A great design that has stood the test of time.

[Chestnut]

Making another bending for for the slats and while that's going on i'm working on the slats for the stools and next will be the slats for the chairs.

Figured i'd throw some pictures up because i started sanding and when you reach for the sander that means your getting close to done right?

[JosephThomas]

Awesome. Only one footrest? Girl in picture will not be happy.

[pkinneb]

Looking good! your moving right along on these. What's your plan for the finish?

[Chestnut]

8 hours ago, JosephThomas said:

Awesome. Only one footrest? Girl in picture will not be happy.

There are 2 one is in clamps the other is mostly complete.

8 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Looking good! your moving right along on these. What's your plan for the finish?

Satin wipe on poly. I don't see my self doing any thing else.

[Chestnut]

Weekend home along, and i got some stuff done. Cleaned the house shoveled off the deck but none of you care about that.

I got the bending form made for the back slats. I kicked around not doing a bent lamination for it thinking it'd just take too much time. In the end i decided to go for it because the excessive waste would bother me.

Used some light behind to match the top and the bottom up. This looks worse than it really was because i had my camera flash behind the board firing directly at the gap.

I got the slats all layout and ready. I decided to give the first run a shot not cutting the top to pieces and see how it works. Spoiler it worked great so the top stays as 1 piece.

Borrowed something from the kitchen to spread the epoxy.

Clamped down.

Spring back, very similar to marc's results.

I feel like the extra effort i made to matching the bending forms pad off. The very little bit that the curve would be off because of the offset gets taken up by the cork i installed on both top and bottom. For those reading this do this for the arms i think it'll make a better bending form also make sure to use cork. If the grain doesn't look like it matches it's because it doesn't i used scraps for the first two back slats. The chairs are going against a wall so I'm using scraps where i feel like i can. Looking at them zoomed in so each 1/8" ply is 2" on my computer monitor the grain match isn't bad. I assume over time I'll forget these weren't from the same board.

While that was curing i did this.

2 chairs have the side slats done. The other 2 will get the slats this coming week depending on how long it takes me. I have to cit and mill more slat material beings that i exhausted the pile i had prepped.

[bleedinblue]

Nice progress.  I guess the slot cutting in the side panels was uneventful?  I'm not too worried about it except for controlling tear out.  

I'm cutting the back slats from 8/4 just to make cutting the tenons easier.  I'd never get that God awful contraption Marc made right.

[Coop]

Man, that’s bitchin! Great work nut! Shoveling what off the porch? 

[bleedinblue]

He must have just got a puppy.  We just got a puppy and he keeps taking dumps on the back deck, so we gotta shovel our deck. 

Or I guess maybe snow. 

[pkinneb]

Looking good Drew the side panels really turned out nice. You got snow? We got nada in Zimmerman 

[Chestnut]

8 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Looking good Drew the side panels really turned out nice. You got snow? We got nada in Zimmerman 

I just didn't shovel it off the last time it snowed. I don't have a puppy, not really a pet person. I love the theory but prefer to practice that theory vicariously through others. My dad has always shoveled his deck off vicariously through me, so the habitat kinda stuck. It's nice to be able to use it in the winter if we get a nice day. For some reason i thought you were in Princeton.

9 hours ago, bleedinblue said:

Nice progress.  I guess the slot cutting in the side panels was uneventful?  I'm not too worried about it except for controlling tear out.  

I'm cutting the back slats from 8/4 just to make cutting the tenons easier.  I'd never get that God awful contraption Marc made right.

Yeah that was some of the motivation to do them from solid as well, I'm going to be doing a heck of a lot more of these in the future so i figured might as well do them the most efficient way possible. Next project is a couch  that's basically 3 Morris chairs connected in a row, or so my idea is that so far.