| Blog series by John | updated 1254 days ago | 9 parts | 19328 reads | 22 comments total |
Part 1: Bent Laminations
Hello everyone. Ive been working on my first Morris Chair and I thought I would document some of this. Found the plans from a book “Wood Magazine Arts and Crafts Furniture”. I’m making some changes to the design of the spindles on the sides of the chair but the dimensions are essentially the same. It will be made from walnut I started this project with plans on laminating stock for the legs and discovered the hard way that the glue was bad. I tried Weldwood plastic resin ...
Part 2: Laying out joinery
Hello LJ’s. Both chair arms are out of the clamps. I like the white artist pencil I found for marking on darker woods. I started laying out the mortises on the legs and wrapping my brain around the whole project BEFORE I start cutting wood and screwing something up. I like to write in marker on areas that will be hidden by joinery so I’m not searching for a faint pencil mark. Here are the layouts for the mortises. I have been thinking of buying a bench top mortiser but IR...
Part 3: Cutting a mortise in a leg
I have not had much time in the shop because I have been taking advantage of the nice weather and getting a bunch of yard work done. Power dethatched the lawn and had 20 something bags of thatch to pick up. Over seeded the lawn. Planted a 17 foot tall maple tree I bought from Home Depot for $139 bucks! So I was able to start cutting a through mortise for one of the front legs. I am thinking about a hollow chisel mortiser. I made a simple template jig so I could use a guide bushing in my pl...
Part 4: Squaring up the through mortises and mortise cam.
Hello LJ’s, Got to spend a little time in the shop yesterday. I finished routing out all the mortises and squared up the through mortises. I have a block of maple laying around that I use as a guide for square chiseling. I ran the maple block over the jointer to get a 90 degree corner and clamped it to the work piece.I used the side walls of the mortise to register the chisel and rotated the chisel handle up to score the face of work.Next I chiseled straight down using the maple bloc...
Part 5: Starting work on the chair back
Hello everyone. Been a long time since I’ve posted because it’s been a long time since I’ve done any woodworking. Discovered fly fishing this year. Well I got out into the shop and cleaned up a little and started work on the back of the chair. I marked out the joinery for the mortise and tenons and hogged out the mortise waste with a drill press then tried to square it up with a chisel. I’m rusty and messed up one of the mortises a little so that got me thinking about ...
Part 6: Chair back joinery almost done
Put in a good days work in the shop and man did it feel good. You know those days where it just flows. Today was one of those. I had an HVAC contractor come over today to look at the furnace so I just started chopping out mortises for the spindles while he worked. I used a mortise chisel for the first time and really liked the way it performed versus a bench chisel for that task. I finished the mortise and tenons for the chair back rails and stiles. In the picture its just standing upright on...
Part 7: Chair back spindles fitted and arm rests cut to rough shape
Hello LJ’s, I cut the tenons for the spindles on my table saw today with the tenoning jig I made and posted on this site. I really like that tenoning jig. Here is a video I took a while back. I dry fit the chair back and stood it up in the frame of the chair to get a look. I then started work on the arm rests. I cut the top rails on the chair sides on the band saw to match the curve of the armrests then template routed them on the router table. Here is a photo of the ...
Part 8: Pre finishing parts with Waterlox
Hello LJ’s, I started finishing parts prior to assembly because it would be impossible to do a good job getting in between the spindles. I’m trying Waterlox medium sheen for the first time and so far so good. I have about three coats on it right now and I used an extra fine nylon pad in between coats to remove high spots and dust nibs. I seems to be slow in building a film. Any one have any experience with Waterlox? It’s a wiping varnish and I’m not sure if I have u...
Part 9: More finishing and dirty shop picture
Hello LJ’s Almost done with pre finishing parts prior to assembly. I’m excited about gluing up this chair. I have been finishing with Waterlox Original in medium sheen. I applied the first several coats full strength to build up a film. A lot of the parts wound up with fat edge. I wet sanded the finish with 800 grit paper and mineral spirits on a prepin weapon sanding block. This removed any dust nibs and cat hair from the full strength coats of finish. It also levels the th...
