Hello Richard,
Glad to hear that you enjoy our 'little chair thread'.
Even more exciting to hear that you have been enticed into building your own Morris chair!
It's easy to see the appeal...
The Arts & Crafts aesthetic movement in general features slabs of handsome hardwood, clean lines and strong joinery.
Woodworkers love to try their hand at such appealing details as corbels,
expressed joinery such as through-tenons and the classic slat galleries.
More specifically, the Morris chair is a hallmark of the entire movement.
Ruskin wrote about his philosophy and values.
William Morris developed and spread the idea in Britain.
Gustav Stickley brought it to America and made it blossom.
Many woodworkers feature a Morris chair on their lifetime build wishlist.
We have been lucky enough to see a wide variety of chairs from many builders in this thread.
Our first wave of builders who posted ongoing progess from start to finish,
had never built a chair before either.
Nathan, Gary Z. and I built our first chairs in this thread for all to see.
As to your decision, only you can decide what is right for yourself.
The chair is comprised of 4 frames:
A pair of sideframes joined together with stretchers, a seatframe and a backrest frame.
Have you any frame building experience?
Maybe build a mirror or picture frame first, to measure and polish your ability?
There are many different plans available.
Nathan, G.Z. and I all built the bow-armed Morris chair plans from Wood Magazine.
I can only comment first-hand on these plans, which were complete and
thorough with step-by-step instructions.
Perhaps find their book, which contains several nice projects, and read the
chair plans to better understand what it takes to build this chair?
Bending the bow arms was a bit tricky but very satisfying!
The Wood Mag. plans mostly use the slats-into-grooves with filler spacers technique.
This is a straight forward approach to making slat galleries.
Myself, I chose to convert the whole chair to traditional mortise and tenons.
Another option is to simulate the through tenons with fake caps.
This method should take less time, which may appeal to some builders.
Different folks have different shoptime, desire, experience and equipment.
Myself, I poked my tenons right through the legs in the traditional way.
This proved time consuming and challenging to tune them just right.
There is no right or wrong, just choices we each have to make.
Only you can choose your most-correct path.
I would not want to discourage anyone... but in the name of fair disclosure:
I found my wood expensive. Not all the wood I paid for, ended up in my chair.
Waste and miscues ate up some QSW oak.
I found the chair huge, and it's parts monopolized my shop surfaces.
Stacks of slats here, legs in clamps there.
I constantly had to move-this, to use-that.
It can get annoying to build a large solid wood project in a small shop.
Depending on your choices, the job is best undertaken with certain tools and machines.
For resawing arm plys for bending, bandsaw is best.
For bending arms without steam, vacuum bag or many clamps are needed.
For a slew of traditional mortises, hard to beat a hollow chisel mortiser.
There are work-arounds, with the usual trade-offs of time, effort and frustration.
Three classic versions of Morris chairs are historically accurate.
At various times, Gus offered straight arms, bow arms and dog-legged bent arms.
You can choose your chair details and construction approach.
There are many options which will affect the tools required, and the difficulty of getting it done.
It is easy to want to build a Morris chair.
It requires perseverance to complete one.
You can count on the support of other Creekers who run into the same problems and obstacles.
That has proven to be an advantage of our shared group build.
But no matter how you cut the mustard...
it will be you, in your shop with a pile of wood building your chair.
I do not believe it is over anyone's head to build such a project.
But it will require time, effort, tools, materials and commitment.
Expect to be challenged, and keep pushing to earn your rewards!
This hobby is most satisfying when we keep improving the state of our individual art.
Eager to hear your thoughts, Richard.
be well,
Walt
ps I find through-tenons demanding, because you have to gradually sneak up on a fit,
and yet leave no unsightly gaps when it will slide home.
There is nowhere to hide in these challenging joints!