Morris Chair

[bleedinblue]

I didn't take any pictures before this point, and I doubt this will be journal-ish since I'll likely forget to take pictures and update the thread. 

I tried to up my game with grain selection, I'm only 70% confident I got it to where I wanted it.  All of the 5/4 stock came from one board, but there were still huge color and grain differences.  It will be a huge improvement over my previous method, which was total disregard. 

This is where I am now...legs are together with the mortises done, and the side rails, etc, are cut to size with tendons mostly done.  This was all uneventful, except I cut one of the mortises in the rear leg a half inch too long.  If it's not concealed by the shoulder, I guess I'll plug it.  It is in a very inconspicuous spot at least. 

Next up I will round over the tenons and start with a dry fit.  I'll be putting my new shoulder plane to work and look forward to cussing about getting the medium instead of the large. 

The new bandsaw is awesome so far, too.  It really impressed me today with small, precise cuts on the tenons.  

[shaneymack]

Nice work! I love seeing a stack of parts with the joinery cut. So sexy. 

[Chestnut]

I haven't gotten around to post my latest pictures yet but i did the side rails all from 1 piece cutting the top rail off the bottom rail and I'm glad i did. The two pieces will look grain wise and color wise awesome. It also elimated a LOT of wasted wood. This is similar to how i did the bending form. Marc has a lot of waste in the design of this chair that he could have done with out.

 

[pkinneb]

Looks great! I am enjoying following you and Drew on your Morris chair builds as I plan on tackling this project later this year.

[bleedinblue]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

I haven't gotten around to post my latest pictures yet but i did the side rails all from 1 piece cutting the top rail off the bottom rail and I'm glad i did. The two pieces will look grain wise and color wise awesome. It also eliminated a LOT of wasted wood. This is similar to how i did the bending form. Marc has a lot of waste in the design of this chair that he could have done with out.

 

A lot of waste, like when he himself pointed out that the off-cuts from the bottom half of the form should be saved and used for something?  That had me scratching my head... I'm hoping to get started on the bending form this week or next weekend. 

The side rails cut sequentially from wide stock will be awesome no doubt.  I took strides for straight grain though, and the wide stock I had had pretty strong cathedral down the center that I wanted to mostly avoid.  Doing your method wouldn't have looked right with the stock I had I don't think.  Ultimately I largely failed with the straight grain strategy in several parts, but I think that when the chair comes together the grain will at least be balanced.

[bleedinblue]

One big mistake I forgot to mention...I didn't like how the tops of the laminated legs came together, the edges mated almost seamlessly but the end grain showed a bit of a hairline gap.  No good for the through tenon.  I tried trimming a bit off, hoping the gap would be less noticeable.  Before I knew it, 3/16" was gone and the gap was still there.  I slept on it and realized that the through tenon wasn't important to me.  It was kind of a "show off" aspect of the chair, it seemed like it would have served more to prove that I could do it rather than add to the design or function of the chair.  So, I nixed it.  I'm going to miss the challenge, but not the end result. 

[Chestnut]

8 hours ago, bleedinblue said:

One big mistake I forgot to mention...I didn't like how the tops of the laminated legs came together, the edges mated almost seamlessly but the end grain showed a bit of a hairline gap.  No good for the through tenon.  I tried trimming a bit off, hoping the gap would be less noticeable.  Before I knew it, 3/16" was gone and the gap was still there.  I slept on it and realized that the through tenon wasn't important to me.  It was kind of a "show off" aspect of the chair, it seemed like it would have served more to prove that I could do it rather than add to the design or function of the chair.  So, I nixed it.  I'm going to miss the challenge, but not the end result. 

One of the Morris chair builds here ran into a similar problem. I believe he made the pyramid top on a piece of stock and glued it to the top of the arm. If you still want the look but don't want the hassle that's always an option.

Check my thread for the sizes of ply i used for the bending form. I didn't create any waste with the ply and used 2/3rds of a sheet instead of a full sheet. Now i have material left over to make the slat bending form and don't have to go searching for scraps.

[bleedinblue]

I started dressing the tenons today.  I thought it would be a quick process, lol.  In the end I only got the stool tenons rounded over and tweaked to fit.  They were a bit too fat for the mortises, so they needed a good bit of cleanup.  

The new shoulder plane worked well for the tenon cheeks, but surprisingly not so well for the shoulders.  I honed the blade well, but I'm guessing the plane isn't set up perfectly for smooth consistent end grain cuts. 

The large shoulder plane would have been more appropriate for the large tenons of course...and on several I went slightly too far.  The epoxy should take care of that problem in the end though. 

[Chet]

On 2/4/2018 at 6:43 PM, bleedinblue said:

I doubt this will be journal-ish since I'll likely forget to take pictures

This is the same problem I have.  I kind of get in a zone and forget, a lot of mine in the past are "re-staged" photos with scraps to fill in were I forgot to take a pic. 

On 2/4/2018 at 6:43 PM, bleedinblue said:

I'll be putting my new shoulder plane to work and look forward to cussing about getting the medium instead of the large.

I hemmed and hawed about this and finally went with the large one and really happy that I did.  It feels like the mass of the plane does half the work.   But I am sure you will be happy with the one you have.

Your doing some nice work so far Frank. 

[bleedinblue]

5 hours ago, Chet said:

 

I hemmed and hawed about this and finally went with the large one and really happy that I did.  It feels like the mass of the plane does half the work.   But I am sure you will be happy with the one you have.

 

Poor planning on my part, I knew this chair was coming up soon and I knew it would have beefy tenons.  I'm sure I'll add the biggin later and almost certainly keep the medium.  I'm sure it will be great to have when I need it for smaller work.

[Chestnut]

You wanted the larger shoulder plane for the cheeks or for the shoulders? I've never had an issue fixing up the shoulders with a chisel and find the 140 Skew block plane to be the best for the tenon cheeks. I use it to clean up rabbets and anything else that would need a rabbeting plane.

[bleedinblue]

I've been eyeing up that skew block for a while.  I don't have plans to add many planes to my collection, but I think that one will happen at some point. 

[pkinneb]

2 hours ago, bleedinblue said:

... I don't have plans to add many planes to my collection, but...

LOL I thought the same thing when I started using hand planes a couple years back ...just added my 16th plane  

Although I use probably 5 of them more than the others I do use them all on a regular basis.

[bleedinblue]

34 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

LOL I thought the same thing when I started using hand planes a couple years back ...just added my 16th plane  

Although I use probably 5 of them more than the others I do use them all on a regular basis.

Fair enough, lol.  I think it is going to take some sort of epiphany for me to add much though...I have a LN LAJ, bronze smoother, and adjustable mouth block plane, and the benefit/use I get out of them is marginal.  Except for the block plane, I have to kind of make it a point to add them into my workflow.  I have the Veritas router plane...a plane that is touted as a "must have," and it just hangs on the wall collecting dust.

It is entirely possible, and maybe likely, that at some point my flow will change and hand tools will become more vital.  When that happens I'm sure I'll be adding more.

[bleedinblue]

Getting my kid out of her crib this afternoon and I got to looking at the top rail of the headboard.  My one and only bent lam I have done before.

I got soooo dang lucky with it.  I knew nothing of grain matching, to the point where I used three different 4/4 boards to make enough lamination to get the thickness I needed and didn't even LOOK at the grain.  My tooling was awful back then and I couldn't get clean re-saws, so I wasted a lot. 

In the end, there was little spring back and 80% of the glue lines are near invisible.  Pure.  Luck. 

I hope I get as lucky with these chair arms! 

[bleedinblue]

Dry fit done and most joints look pretty good.  A couple shoulders scraped with rasps, a couple spots of tear out I didn't notice before this point, but pretty good.  Next up is the bending form for the arms. 

[Chet]

Looks like it is going well Frank.

[pkinneb]

Coming along nicely!

[Chestnut]

When you get to the curved rear shoulders. I found it easier to remove the extra waste with a mortise chisel rather than a saw. I did 1 or 2 with the saw and did not enjoy the experience. It was easier to just chop it out.

[bleedinblue]

Good to know.  That was the push toward buying a mortise chisel.  I added on a spokeshave to help with the curves, too. 

[bleedinblue]

Drew went through this a lot and threw out a lot of numbers that made my head hurt, but I can't grasp why Marc didn't make his bending form this way.  This is still rough and the curves need to be trued up, but I started with a piece about 10" wide and 36" long.  I pasted the template down and cut. 

As Drew did, this should cut down a lot on waste. 

[Chestnut]

9 hours ago, bleedinblue said:

Drew went through this a lot and threw out a lot of numbers that made my head hurt, but I can't grasp why Marc didn't make his bending form this way.  This is still rough and the curves need to be trued up, but I started with a piece about 10" wide and 36" long.  I pasted the template down and cut. 

As Drew did, this should cut down a lot on waste.

I don't want to be critical of Marc, i think why he did it was because he was juggling with design and building the chair and it was one less thing to worry about and figure out. His method isn't wrong it's just safe, which is good.

I'm excited to see how your arms turn out.

[bleedinblue]

I'm excited but nervous about resawing the arms with the new bandsaw.  I have such little experience resawing, I'm worried I'll have to do so much clean up after each cut I will end up less than the 1 inch target.

I'm going the epoxy route also.  Using totalboat with crystal clear hardener, which appears to be identical to west system 207. 

[Chestnut]

25 minutes ago, bleedinblue said:

I'm excited but nervous about resawing the arms with the new bandsaw.  I have such little experience resawing, I'm worried I'll have to do so much clean up after each cut I will end up less than the 1 inch target.

I'm going the epoxy route also.  Using totalboat with crystal clear hardener, which appears to be identical to west system 207. 

Make sure to spread over the entire laminate, don't assume that clamping pressure will spread it around at all because it won't nearly as much as you want.

As for resawing, run some practice on pine or something. That's one of those things where you just have to get used to it. Proper setup goes a long way but strait boards also makes a huge difference. in the thin pieces don't worry about slight movement you are going to clamp the things into a bending form after all.

[Chet]

I just watched Marc's section on building the form again because I was curious with what is been talked about with the forms.  Here is my personal take away.  One, Drew is probably partially correct in that it provided some ease of production for the benefit of the whole video series.  Two there is a little science to what he has done buy cutting the bottom portion of the form and then cutting the top portion.  If you were to extend that arc to a full half circle, think of making something like a form for the apron on a Demilune table.  If you were to cut the forum with just a single cut on your bandsaw instead of two cuts to allowing for the space needed for you lamination, once you put your lamination in a forum from a single cut, the two halves of the form would not go together, you need to allow space for the lamination.  And my third thought is that by building it to the size at which he did the cauls have a little more mass and there for when you apply your clamps you get a more even pressure across the whole lamination.  It may be over kill but it probable provides less chance of gaps and other mishaps in the project.