Morris chair legs?

[Greg Urwiller]

In the planning process to build a Morris chair. The legs will be 2 1/4"+ square. The two ways mostly used are the (1) laminate/veneer style, where where you laminate glue the leg thickness up one way, then glue on a thin veneer on the opposite 2 sides so you have the QS facings on all sides, and (2), miter the 4 sides together. So, has anyone tried both, and if so which one would you recommend? If I would go with the miter style, how hard is it to match the long 45's without screwing up? Now, I just skipped over building a router table (had the router, lift, and table, just never built the cabinet!) and bought a shaper. Would this be the time to buy a lock miter bit for this job, or would I be just as well off with a table sawn miter? Getting the legs done without gaps is my main concern on this project. Thanks. Greg

[Michael Peet]

Hi Greg,

IIRC, there was some discussion of this in The Great Morris Chair thread. Check it out: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?85886-The-Great-Morris-Chair-project

Mike

[joe milana]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?85886-The-Great-Morris-Chair-project

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?73122-Morris-Chair-legs-AKA-quot-Me-and-the-Lock-Miter-Joint-quot

Two good threads on morris chair. First one is a group build where several people built a chair at the same time. Lots of good info.

Second thread describes the "lock miter" method for the legs. I'd definitely practice with some cheap material before wasting any QSWO. Good luck!

[John TenEyck]

Just to complicate things for you, there is a third option, one used by Stickley and probably others. They make their "quadrilinear" legs by wrapping a square center section with four mitered pieces. The only advantage I can see of that approach is that it allows you to use thinner stock to build the leg. Well, it does look pretty cool, too.

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

Yep. I just did both. No router table. No lock miter set. No interest in either........which pretty much takes me out of John's quadrilinear style - those suckers have to be dead-nuts in every respect.

My comments........

First was the "5-piece" style....5 pieces because these were ~3" square dining table legs. A chunk of WO in the middle of two pieces of resawn 6/4. Glued up, then jointed and planed square. Then, I used the TS set at 45* to take out the side-grain sections, and to make mating pieces that were glued in there.

When I used the TS on the laminated chunk, I over-cut the 45* cuts, so that there was a small trough at the inner corners - did not want any interference when the last pieces went in. Then, I used a router to clean out the trough's flat base on the laminated chunks. Glued and clamped the mating parts in place. The mating parts were a bit over-sized, so that their "points", if you will, extended beyond the laminated chunk's sides, and so their face was a bit proud. Then - I jointed and planed my way down to where the miters were on the exact edge. Not all that difficult, but since it was my first at-bat, I took a lot of time and probably worried too much about being "exact", looking back on it.

One thing I did - I got the joints to come out pretty doggone good, but the legs themselves are not perfectly square, and are not all precisely the same size. We're talking the odd 64th here and there - but that did not matter, because I did all my joinery layouts from the inside corners, so any over-dimension simply ran to the outside. You need your calipers to tell, because you will never see it with your eyes.

If I were to do this again, I would use thinner "show" parts. maybe resawn 5/4, maybe resawn 4/4. Which led me to the other style on my next at-bat. These were 2" square, made from 5/4. Glued up 2 pieces, that ended up at about 1-7/8" wide and 2-1/2" thick after laminating and squaring on the jointer & planer.

Then - resaw about 1/8"- 3/16" off of each good face. These were my veneer pieces, which were glued onto the side-grain faces. Squared them up with jointer and planer, then used a hand plane to chamfer the edge corners - bringing the veneer glue joint in line with an edge of the chamfer. Again - they aren't all precisely 2" and aren't all precisely the same size, but with the joinery layouts measured from an inside corner, I am the only person that will ever know because I'm not telling anyone else.:p

My thoughts on the two: If I am using high-$$ figured grain [which I did on the 3" table legs with QSWO], then I will go with the veneered version, and use plain-looking wood for the core. Save bucks.

If I am using more generic wood - as I did on my veneered legs out of HM, then it wouldn't matter in terms of $$$. But - the veneered approach is much, much faster and less exacting.

So, I have likely done my first, and only, 5-piece legs.

Oh - BTW - on the 5-piece legs, I dyed the glue. Did a good job of hiding the seam. However, I did not dye the glue on the veneered legs, and they look just fine also. So - I've pretty much decided that the dyed glue was a waste of time as well. But - the QSWO is pretty doggone splintery, so there were some ragged edges which the dyed glue did a nice job on hiding. So - if I was doing the 5-piece method with splintery wood, then I would dye the glue again. Bit I don't plan on going down that path again. But, you never know...............

[Scott T Smith]

For thicker legs, when using quartersawn oak for the legs I would recommend the 4 piece glue up as opposed to the two piece + 2 veneers. The reason why is the expansion/contraction characteristics of the wood.

Most woodworkers understand that quartersawn wood is very dimensionally stable, but we tend to equate dimensional stability to being either cupping or expansion/contraction across the width of the board.

When exposed to changes in RH%, Quartersawn oak expands and contracts approximately 2X in thickness as opposed to width. Flat sawn oak is the exact opposite. That's why QS oak is so well suited for wide boards; a few percentage points of thickness change in a 1/2" or 3/4" thick panel is negligible, what we're typically concerned about is changes in width.

When you build thick legs using a 2 piece glue up with veneered sides, you run the risk of splitting the veneer cap right down the middle when the wood is exposed to RH% variances. When the two thick glued up QS oak pieces expand in thickness, the side veneer will split along the glue seam due.

Case in point - I gave my wife an antique library table for a desk several years ago; it is made from quartersawn white oak. I would estimate that it is around 80 years old. The 3" wide legs were manufactured with 2 piece glue-ups with veneer being applied to the sides, and some of the veneer is split right down the seam along the glue up.

[Bob Lang]

Laminating is easier and faster, but it does contain the element of risk. I don't think it's as risky as I used to, even though I've seen a lot of antiques that have developed cracks on the veneered faces. Many of these old pieces were stored in a damp basement, hot attic or out in the barn, and I think those extreme conditions led to the cracks. In a house, with humidity and temperature in a reasonable range I think this method is OK.

The best way to ensure success with mitered corners is stock preparation. If the pieces are perfectly flat and straight it isn't a problem to glue the corners directly from the table saw, provided you have a good 45 degree cut. I line the four pieces up side by side, tape them together with clear packing tape along the long edge, then flip the taped pieces over to apply glue. The four sides can be rolled up and held together with more tape.

The original L & JG Stickley quadralinear leg was a miter with rabbet. The advantage here is that the pieces won't slide apart when you glue and clamp them, simple miters are strong enough, and the tape is a good method to keep them from sliding around when you glue. These were made with custom cutters on a shaper at the time, and that makes sense if you're making hundreds of legs. If you're only making four, the set up for this, or for using the lock-miter bit will take more time than cutting and gluing simple miters.

Bob Lang

[Cary Falk]

I find that biscuits work well to keep the mitered pieces from sliding around while you clamp.

[Chad Bender]

I've done the quadralinear leg on several pieces with excellent results. The trick is cash and patience. Buy the router bit set from Infinity, spend the time setting things up exactly, and route all of your pieces at the same time. I make the legs a bit bigger than they need to be (~1/8") and then plane them down to final dimension once the glue is cured.

[Kent A Bathurst]

As always, I gained some insight from Scott and Bob.

I have considered Bob's 4-piece-blue-tape method, but I lack the - ahem - "fortitude" to try it. Mebbe some day.........

Also - FWIW - when I did my veneered version, I did give some passing thought to the expansion problem. But I moved on quickly, because the pair of boards in each leg were ripped from the same wider board....I figgered that any moisture movement would have to be fairly consistent from pieces from the same section of the same log.......

And - the 5-piece legs came from different parts of the same board - off-cuts with no eye-catching grain were used for the filler square.....otherwise, they would sit for a year in that pile of stuff right over there, waiting for some epiphany on what to do with them. ;)

[Rod Sheridan]

I've made the legs using the veneer method, it works very well, I use thin veneer, just more than a millimeter in thickness.

I've also used the lock mitre approach using the shaper and it works very well indeed if the setup is accurate..........Rod.