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Morris Chair build ala. Wood Mag. plans

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chair morris
25K views 123 replies 22 participants last post by  Northwest29 
#1 ·
And so it begins

One of my main goals in setting up a home woodshop has been to make heirloom quality furniture in the Mission and Arts & Crafts motifs. And after two hope chests, three sets of speakers and a platform bed, I'm finally ready to dive into my first real furniture piece, a Morris chair. After reviewing most of the plans out there, I decided that I liked the Wood Magazine plan best.

Furniture Product Chair Interior design Wood


After much clean up and organization to reclaim the horizontal surfaces of the shop from junk collecting, I lugged in the boards from my lumber racks on the other side of the basement. I aquired a decent stash of 6/4 and 8/4 White Oak on the cheap several years ago. It's plain sawn, but there are some boards with verticle grain and nice flecking, which I'll try to put in the most visable framing members.

Table Wood Engineering Hardwood Workbench

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You'll notice that two of the widest boards have quite the bow in them. Rather than cut these up and fight that, I'm contemplating using these for the bowed arms. The plan calls for laminating three 3/8" layers on a bending form to make them, but these boards may be good to go as is. And if not, I may be able to steam them the remaining amount.

But first I picked out a straight 6/4×7x8' board for the legs and set about making them into S4S blanks that I can glue up into the final 2-1/4"x2-1/4" size. I cut the rough board into eight oversized blanks using the SCMS and TS. This is where a 3 HP TS really earns it's keep.

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I normally run the TS with a 40T Frued Fusion blade, and even though this burning was mostly due to the rough boards having a little wobble in them, I decided to clean all of my 10" blades and switch over to the 24T rip blade.

Automotive tire Rim Gas Automotive wheel system Tread


Then it's:
Jointer (face) → Jointer (square edge) → TS (2nd edge square and parallel) → Planer (2nd face parallel)
The rip blade gave a better finish, but if I failed to keep a constant feed rate, I'd still get a little burn.

Table Automotive design Wood Desk Motor vehicle


Here I use a precision ground straight edge and feeler gages to check my first face

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And here I'm checking the first edge square with my trusty (though old) Craftsman square against the window light

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I fanangled a smokin' deal and aquired a used PM15 planer last summer for $100, and after a pretty extensive clean, de-rust and tune-up, had it up and running. But I was getting snipe on all of my test cuts, so I had to dive back into the manual and figure out what was going on. I concluded that the instructions set the chip breaker way to low, such that it took a lot of force to spring it up atop of the board. So I raised the chip breaker and things improved substantially. The snipe is still very noticeable, but when I measure, it was ~ 0.005"

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So I gave these faces one last light clean up pass on the jointer and had a stack of blanks ready to laminate.

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I'm not yet ready to cut the parts to finish lenght, but I wanted to cut them to a uniform length to facilitate registering them together during the glue-up

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A clean 60T cross cut blade was one of my first and best shop purchases.

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As with any glue-up, thinking it through and getting everything staged and ready to go is key. I decided to laminate all four legs in one shot using my shop made clampling cauls.

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But here's a new problem, the stock is to thick for the caul bolts.

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F-clamps to the rescue

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And more and more clamps

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Glue cleanup is one of my least favorite tasks…. a wet rag, scraper and elbow grease did the trick.

Then it was time to really test both the TS and the newly cleaned blade, as I ripped the laminated leg blanks to finish size. The depth of cut was ~2-3/8", in bone dry white oak. The task went well, unless I had even the slightes pause feeding the stock… in which case I'd get a burn. I also noticed that I was more prone to get burn at the QS grain flecks. So I dusted off the pieces, removing the burn and the jointer/planer marks with a ROS.

And here's the fruit of my weekend. Some 7 hours in the shop Satureday and 2 on Sunday. That included planer tuning, saw blade cleaning, jointer fence checking, miter saw angle tweaking, making an extension block for the Gripper and another shop clean up when I was done.

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As much as I love shop time, I was tired and ready to quit Sunday afternoon.

Next up, cutting the legs to finish length and cutting the mortices.

I've been hemming and hawing about the seat and arm height on the chair as they seem quite low at 14" and 23" respectively. My blanks are 2" longer than needed, so I may leave an extra 1" at the bottom and trim them on the finished chair if needed.

Thanks for looking in and Happy trails.
 

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#108 · (Edited by Moderator)
Very impressive build so far.

I am jealous because building a chair is on my bucket list and I have no idea where to start.
Although I've engineered chairs from other designers for mass production at furniture houses, designing and building my own chair design seems a monumental task.

Even building a classic such as your Morris chair seems to be a very exacting exercise.

BTW, so glad you didn't fumigate yourself as well as the chair.
 
#111 · (Edited by Moderator)
Matt,

What size roundover bit is that? I usually just shape the foam with an electric knife, but I'm in the midst of restoring a turn-of-the-last-century Morris chair and could use your trick. It looks much easier and more uniform than the electric knife method. Thanks for sharing.

L/W

P.S. Is that a treadle sewing machine you use? I thought I was the only one still using one of those!
 
#112 · (Edited by Moderator)
Damned Clever Matt!! I never would have thought of that.
- Jerry
I wish I could take credit for it, but it's a commonly used technique in the foam fab shop where I work. We use it to round off the bottom edges of custom foam inserts that go into Pelican cases.

What size roundover bit is that?

P.S. Is that a treadle sewing machine you use? I thought I was the only one still using one of those!
- lightweightladylefty
It's a big bit…. 1.5" radius. Too big for the hole in my router table plate, so I had to let the bit stand proud of the table top and build up the surface with cardboard to get it flush. This foam (LX35) has a very rubbery feel to it and would not slide at all. So I used large sheets of paper as a slip sheet and let the router chew the paper up with the foam. Between the shop vac and DC there was almost no mess… until I flipped over the block and forgot to turn the shop vac back on. now there's a mess.

Check my earlier posts for more info on the Singer 66. My lovely wife threatened me with bodily harm if I used her nice sewing machine for leather, so I rehabbed the old treadle machine that I've been using as a night stand for 20 years and converted it to electric power. It's mostly working out well. It can handle 4 thicknesses of leather well enough. But it's giving me fits in the few spots where I have to go 6 thicknesses (splices on the piping). It's not a power issue, its got something to do with the foot clearance and timing of the shuttle.
 
#114 ·
Seat leather vents

I already have brass grommets, the punch and the hammer and anvil set up for putting grommets in tarps, so I decided to use these with a felt back instead of buying the whole setup for the special vent grommets from Sail Rite.

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Passes air freely and looks neat and trim.
 

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#117 ·
Seat Cushion Done

My old Singer wouldn't get through some of the spots with 6 layers, so I had to get a local guy who does alterations and has a commercial machine to help me out. Thanks to Stormin' Norman …

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Squeezing the cushion in took three people.

I was hoping for a bit more of an over stuffed fit, but overall I'm pretty pleased.
 

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#118 · (Edited by Moderator)
Matt,

Congratulations on a job well done! I like the grommet idea.

An idea for you if you ever decide to upholster another cushion: wrap the zipper portion a couple of inches around each end, then hide the end of the zipper in a tuck of the fabric. This gives you more room to get the cushion into the covering. (My camera is in the shop or I would take a photo to show you what I mean. If you want photo clarification, let me know and I'll take a picture tomorrow.) When you insert the foam cushion, wrap it with a dry cleaning bag or similar (don't put the cushion inside the bag) and pull out the bag when you get the cushion inside. You can always add more batting and attempt the dry cleaning bag wrap for a slightly fuller cushion.

I always measure my cushions or pillows and then don't allow any extra for the seams and it seems like it works out okay that way. When I first made covers and added the extra seam allowance, they were always looser than I wanted them. (Don't ask me why that is; I've never quite comprehended it!)

L/W
 
#119 · (Edited by Moderator)
Thanks for the tips Lefty.

I get the foam at cost from work and may re-cut the cushion to fit tighter some day. But for now I desperately need to get this chair out of my shop, so I'm pressing ahead with the back rest.

SailRite seems to be the place to get everything you need for boat cushions and they have a ton of instructional videos. They say the same thing about making the cushions larger than you think they need to be, but of course, I discovered this after I had cut the foam and leather.
 
#122 · (Edited by Moderator)
It came out great. I kinda like the slightly loose look for a Morris seat. That's how many of the originals looked, and they only get better with age.

If you want a tighter stuff, just add 1-2 layers of high loft batting (Dacron) to the foam. Then sew yourself a slip cover for the foam + Dacron and it will slide right in.

Great work, thanks for sharing it.
 
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