The Great Morris Chair project

[Michael Peet]

Thanks for the shout out and kind words, Walt. I was surprised to see my old bench thread get revived. I feel like I'm just treading water here as I prepare to enter my third season on this project . Glad to see you posting again!

I have started dusting off this project literally and figuratively, having gone through my lumber stash again to start picking out boards for the chairs. I believe I have a sweet pair of bookmatched pieces to use for the two sets of arms. I am leaning more and more towards the lamination as I see the steam bending as too risky.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My next step will most likely be the chair leg construction. I think I will go with the more standard flat veneers for these, as the mitered infills were tricky and time-consuming, and these legs are almost twice as long...

More updates and pics to come as things happen!

Mike

[Michael Peet]

The last few weeks I have been thinking about how I will construct the arms. My stock is only 5/4, so after resawing into three slabs and planing out the saw marks I don't see how I will be left with enough material to reach the 1-1/8" arm thickness. This got me thinking more about steam bending, although I have never done it before. So I have been getting ready for some experiments!

First I built a simple box, just a 1x8 and 1x6 cut down to about 40" and attached with deck screws (no glue). Inside there is a row of captured dowels to suspend the work piece in the steam. The door has some high-temperature gasket material around the opening and a stainless steel toggle latch. Not pictured at the far end is the steam input fitting, provided with the Earlex steam generator.

P1020927.20.jpg

My brother is an architect and has access to large-format printers, so he enlarged and printed the bending form template for me. I spent today building the form from half a sheet of 3/4" MDF. I made a starter template from a thin piece of plywood, then cut all the MDF on the bandsaw a little oversize. Then I used a router and bearing bit to trim each layer to size after screwing it into the stack. It was dusty work and I am glad it's over.

P1020926.20.jpg

I don't know if I will try to bend the whole arm in one shot or go for two steam-bent and laminated layers. I am thinking the two-ply approach might be the sweet spot; then I am only bending 9/16", just over half an inch, and the final lamination step may eliminate a lot of the springback.

Mike

[Mike Christopher]

The last few weeks I have been thinking about how I will construct the arms. My stock is only 5/4, so after resawing into three slabs and planing out the saw marks I don't see how I will be left with enough material to reach the 1-1/8" arm thickness. This got me thinking more about steam bending, although I have never done it before. So I have been getting ready for some experiments!

First I built a simple box, just a 1x8 and 1x6 cut down to about 40" and attached with deck screws (no glue). Inside there is a row of captured dowels to suspend the work piece in the steam. The door has some high-temperature gasket material around the opening and a stainless steel toggle latch. Not pictured at the far end is the steam input fitting, provided with the Earlex steam generator.

P1020927.20.jpg

My brother is an architect and has access to large-format printers, so he enlarged and printed the bending form template for me. I spent today building the form from half a sheet of 3/4" MDF. I made a starter template from a thin piece of plywood, then cut all the MDF on the bandsaw a little oversize. Then I used a router and bearing bit to trim each layer to size after screwing it into the stack. It was dusty work and I am glad it's over.

P1020926.20.jpg

I don't know if I will try to bend the whole arm in one shot or go for two steam-bent and laminated layers. I am thinking the two-ply approach might be the sweet spot; then I am only bending 9/16", just over half an inch, and the final lamination step may eliminate a lot of the springback.

Mike

My experience with steam bending. your box might be sealed too well. the steam will generate a lot of pressure-if there is no escape it will either blow out the steam hose or blow out the sides. I'd get rid of the gasket and not latch the door closed to allow the pressure to escape for safety.

I've read that bending kiln dried wood is difficult so if you can get air dried wood that is better. I've only tried bending air dried wood with good success. the rule of thumb is 1 hour per inch of thickness of your stock. thats one our at 200 to 210 deg F. just drill a small hole on the side to accept at cooking thermometer and you'll be able to monitor the internal temp of your steam box.

I found it much easier to bend the stock if it was overlength. its difficult to get the last 8" or so inches of the bend to take if it is cut to length already. I would be worried about heating and bending the wood after you laminate as it would possibly compromise your glue joint?

I've found that the springback is about 10%.

I have a sauna and let my bent stock dry overnight in the sauna. without the sauna, I think if you dried it for a week still in the form, that would be good.

I think you will have good results if you have green or air dried stock.

I found this to be a good resource http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/usda/ah125.pdf

good luck.

[Michael Peet]

My experience with steam bending. your box might be sealed too well. the steam will generate a lot of pressure-if there is no escape it will either blow out the steam hose or blow out the sides. I'd get rid of the gasket and not latch the door closed to allow the pressure to escape for safety.

Oops, forgot to mention there are two holes in the bottom of the box - one in the rear for condensation and one near the front for steam. The box is used tilted up at the front, so I guess the idea is that water will run downhill and out the hole in back, and steam will fill the box and then exit the bottom holes. I used it today and this is what happened anyway! The Earlex steam generator also has a pressure relief valve for safety.

I found it much easier to bend the stock if it was overlength. its difficult to get the last 8" or so inches of the bend to take if it is cut to length already. I would be worried about heating and bending the wood after you laminate as it would possibly compromise your glue joint?

Yeah, I did make my form a little long. Glad it wasn't for nothing

What I meant regarding the lamination was I will steam bend the two halves first, let them totally cool and dry, then glue them together on the form. I agree that heating after gluing would be a bad idea!

Here is a test piece in the form after steaming. No pictures of the operation as I was focused on not screwing it up, maybe I'll get some next time. The piece is about 1/2" thick and I steamed it for a little over 30 minutes. It seemed to take to the form easily enough, although I'm glad there were two of us.

IMAG0186.40.jpg

There is a plywood "strap" on top of the work piece, both to help prevent splintering and to provide a buffer for the clamps. I'm thinking I'll wait the better part of a week before taking it out.

good luck.

Thanks, I'm gonna need it!

Mike

[Dennis Pickerl]

Finally back at the Chair!
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Quietly the wrapped parts have been sitting for two years in a corner waiting for me to work my way through a move, new shop (and tools!) and assorted "more important" projects. I completed the 2 ottomans in 2013 but today was the day for a restart on the chairs.
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It took more than a little time to figure out where I was and what was next. Everything went together again and I spent a couple hours fitting arms to the top rails of one chair (the 1st chair was already fitted) and the spindles into the mortises.
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I started to break out material for the backs. I'm going to go with the flat rails for the back as per the plans.

I have a fair bit of concern about how to do the seat. I'm not too keen on the floating cushion of the plans so I've been re-reading the complete thread again (on page 18 of 45) to determine how others have dealt with the seat question.

More later,

[Michael Peet]

Happy New Year everyone

This unusually warm winter has been better for my geocaching stats than my progress on this project. However over the last few weeks I did find the time to steam bend the two halves of my prototype armrest, laminate them together, cut the curved board to its final shape, and give it a good sanding.

I see now why most people are not steam bending. While the second half bent more than the first, it was still not as much as I had hoped - even with spending 50% longer in the steam box than the 1-hour-per-inch rule of thumb. The lamination step took up most of the slack, but I still have about 1/2" of spring back on the finished piece. On the plus side the seam is virtually invisible.

P1020928.20.jpg

At least now I know it *can* be done this way. I am not going to build a new form with a tighter bend to compensate, so my choice seems to be between under-bent or under-thickness armrests. I will consider this while I work on the legs.

Mike

[Dennis Pickerl]

Mike: That looks good to me. As long as both are pretty much the same you are golden. I traced the curve of the arm on to the top of the sides and fitted to the under side of the arm. That arm looks great and the glue line is invisible.

[Michael Peet]

Well I've been beset by equipment problems over the last couple weeks.

Last weekend the key that holds the pulley on the lower wheel of my bandsaw popped out, and I couldn't figure out why it was cutting so slowly and making weird noises until the belt came off too . After that it was obvious and I found the missing key right on the ground inside the saw. It's cutting fine again now. I'll have to remember to check it once a year or so to tighten those pesky set screws..

This past weekend my water heater developed a leak and dumped (at least) 40 gallons of water into the basement over the course of a day or two, which conveniently is where my shop is located. Fortunately all I lost were a few cardboard boxes, and the water magically avoided all of my major equipment. I got the heater replaced and cranked up my big old dehumidifier, and as of this morning the humidity was back down at a safe level.

In spite of these setbacks I was able to get all 40 pieces rough cut for the chair legs. I am doing a 5 piece leg construction: two large inner core sandwiched between two 1/2" layers, with thin veneers on the other two sides. I want to have the leg tenons poking up through the armrests without a visible seam in them, hence the thick inner piece.

Mike

[Michael Peet]

The humidity is back down to a good level and I've been in thicknessing mode this weekend. I know, it would take but a couple hours to run these all through a planer. There's something relaxing about planing by hand though, and no machine to struggle down into the basement and maintain. I've gotten through the thick cores and about half the thicker veneers so far.

My main workhorse - the #7 - and my #3-turned-scrub, a chunk of wax for the soles every now and then, and a garbage can for the shavings.
P1020932.20.jpg

A handful of the thicker veneers now at a hair over final thickness. I'll bring it all down to final dimensions after the leg is assembled.
P1020933.20.jpg

Mike

[Michael Peet]

Looking good, Dennis. Looks like you achieved a nice fit with the tenons poking through the top of the armrests.

Everyone seems to be doing a slightly different version of these chairs. I love it!

Mike