I’m contemplating the Morris chair in the Mossman and Bavaro Book (“The Furniture of Gustav Stickley”). Looking at the drawings, it looks like the bottom (or top??) side rails are not square to the legs; this impression is reinforced by the statement on p. 122 “Using the full size drawing, determine he shoulder angles on the top and bottom side rails and mark.” I take this to refer to the angle of the tenon shoulder lines on the rails, which are something other than 90, otherwise, why the drawing?
But why not 90? I realize the seat is supposed to be higher in the front, but that could easily done by attaching the seat cushion cleats at the desired angle. Why tilt the whole side assembly upwards at the front?
Replies
I'm not sure which morris chair is in the book you mention, but the original (No. 332) by Gustav Stickley did have the arm at a slight angle, and the rail below parralel to it. Why? I don't know-one of those decisions that designers make. The rail could be square if you want, it just wouldn't be as accurate a reproduction. Personally I think it makes a difference aestheically, but to each his own.
Bob Lang
http://www.craftsmanplans.com
I made the exact same chair, from the exact plans you describe. I made the side rails 90 degrees to the legs, as you describe, so as to avoid having to cut beveled shoulders on 32 spindles! (I did spindles instead of slats) The angled side rails are a subtle detail I can appreciate, but it just wasn't worth it to me. The finished chair is gorgeous, my pride and joy. Maybe a Stickley purist will walk in someday and gasp in horror at my alteration to the sacred design, but I could really care less. It took me almost three years of weekend on and off work to complete. It was my first real furniture project, and I learned a heck of a lot doing it. I could probably save you some pain on the whole process, if you are interested. I drew up a set of full scale CAD plans based on the Bavaro/Mossman drawings which I would be happy to send you if you want them. Let me know.
Yes, by all means send me the plans! [email protected].
I worked on a full size drawing of the side yesterday for about 3 hours and couldn't get it to come out right using the measurements in the book. The rear leg was about 3/8 too short, meaning that the top side rail "pinched out" i.e. the arm intersected the top side rail before reaching the rear leg.
Still undecided on the tilt question. Another book, "Building Arts and Crafts Furniture" by Kemner and Zdila, tilts the side by building it square and then cutting the rear leg shorter; but this means the legs aren't plumb. I know the legs can bear the weight but I wonder about the tenons into them from the side rails.
I have a home-made horizontal router table that works well for tenons. I envisioned some sort of wedge or sled that would carry the piece end-on over the bit, thus cutting the shoulders at the proper angle (which in turn depends on the accuracy of my full size drawing and the accuracy with which I can pick up the angle from the drawing with my bevel gauge).
I have a Jet mortiser which requires a darn lot of fiddling just to cut square mortises. For angles, I guess you extend the mortise lines out to the edge, square them down over the edge, and then put a wedge or block under the piece until the chisel is aligned with the marks. 16 spindles per side, 2 mortises per spindle, that's 64 angled mortises. Hm.
Thanks anyway for all the responses!
If you mean angled from front to back, I think it adds a nice touch. I made a Morris chair that has a 5 degree angle in the arms and seat slats. It looks nice and gives it a sunken look and feel. If I could figure out how to post a picture I'd show it to you to see if it's what you're talking about.
The chair shown in the Mossman/Bavaro book has about 10 degrees of slope on the arms, front to back. The angle in question is a slight drop front to back on the side rails that house the side slats or spindles and support the arms. It's a nice subtle detail, but it complicates the joinery bigtime, since all these parts end up with angled shoulders on the M&T connections. This chair is already a joinery workout with through M&T joints, bent back slats, and lots of interlocking parts that must align perfectly. It busted my chops thoroughly without the added complication of angled tenon shoulders. I plan on making another at some point in my life, maybe I'll have advanced enough to try a perfect reproduction of the original design. In the meantime, I'm really happy with what I made.
I forgot to mention that Fine Woodworking had an excellent article on the same Morris chair design, with a great exploded drawing and some jig designs I used also. Check out issue #101, July/August 1993, pages 38-42. This shows the angled rails and angled tenon shoulder issue very clearly.
Thanks for the tip on the back issue.
Seems I've got plenty of time to think about things while I spend my evenings flattening oak with a jointer plane. Another week, the boards will be ready.
Another plans issue: the book says the lower rail is 3' wide, which it is, but since it's at an angle, in order to have length for the tenons on the ends, the piece from which it's cut needs to be 4' wide. I lucked out here because the piece was about 6' wide in the rough.
Bottom line: always draw your own plans, even if you're using someone else's.
I nearly got nailed a few times on this chair not allowing for tenon lengths. Note that the bend in the arms is achieved by laminating wood cut from the same board you use for each arm, which ensures a grain and color match. Don't forget to cut the arm boards about 6" long to allow for the this laminating material. It took me two tries to get the angled arms right. I made a jig similar to that shown in the FWW article to hold the arms square while mortising, used the same jig to cut off waste at top of angled arm with a radial saw. It worked great, but still left a lot of hand work. So have you decided to go with the angled tenons?
>>It took me two tries to get the angled arms right. I made a jig similar to that shown in the FWW article to hold the arms square while mortising, used the same jig to cut off waste at top of angled arm with a radial saw. It worked great, but still left a lot of hand work.>>
What went wrong the first time? I made mine long enough to get the extra piece to cut off and glue on the bottom, which I hope I did correctly. I cut the angle with a bandsaw and then spent the afternoon smoothing the cut sides to glue-joint-quality flatness. Not clear whether the cut side was supposed the glue side, or whether it matters.
According to my study of the plans, the lower rail has to cut initially to 4" wide instead of 3" (as the plans specify) to accomodate its "slant".
Currently I am resolved to go the angled tenons/"straight" mortises route. The angled tenons with a router and straightedge guide actually shouldn't be that hard to cut, and then the mortises can be square. The real difficulty is acheiving accuracy in transferring the shoulder angle from the drawing to the wood, i.e. the shoulders will be straight, the tenon will fit, but will the angle be correct? Lots of dry fitting ahead!
So have you decided to go with the angled tenons?
I botched my first attempt at cutting the waste off the top of the arms to create the flats where the leg through tenons poke out. My jig was sloppy, so the "break" from angle to flat wasn't perpendicular to the arm sides. I ended up scrapping the arms, remade the jig, and tried again. It came out perfect the second time. I am trying to attach photos, caught in some snag, Taunton is telling me I have exceeded my attachment limit, but I only have the zipped Cad plans on my account. Whassup?
Another try at attaching a photo! Let me know if this works.
Okay, I think I finally figured out how to do this. Here is the chair I built, with the angled sides. I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're talking about, but on mine the tenons entered square, which made the mortising easier. The angle is cut on the top of the rail.
Nice Chair!
If I understand correctly, as you say, the tenons enter the legs square, so that the mortises are square, but the tenons are angled. These are the "big" tenons, and it's easier, I'm thinking to make a big tenon with angled shoulders than a big angled mortise. Maybe the slat tenons should be slanted too?
Thanks! Actually, everything is square and the tenons are not angled. There is enough room for them before the arm angle becomes a problem. It is only the top rail that is angled. At the time I made this chair I didn't have a band saw, so I created the arm angle by cutting the end off at 5 degrees and quadrupel biscuiting it back on.
g-sawn,
Zip file downloaded fine but my computer then asked what to use to open it. Since I didn't recognise the extension, I wasn't able to open it. do you recall what format you used?
Peter
I saved the the drawing as an Autocad Release 13/LT DXF format, then compressed it with Winzip. If you have a compatible Cad progran, you have to import the drawing, which you Cad program will convert to it's format. Have you tried that?
Hi q-sawn,
I downloaded and extracted the file but couldn't open it in TurboCad, although it does accept .dxf files. I am new to CAD and was looking forward to seeing a good drawing.
I got an error message saying:
File format error Line 0
I don't know if it is me or your file.
Kind Regards,
Ricky Briggs.
Ricky:
E-mail me at [email protected]
I don't know much about the mechanics of Cad file formats, but most programs out there are compatible with Autocad out of simple market necessity. I can save the drawing in several different formats, one of them is sure to work with Turbocad. If your e-mail account has the capacity, I could send you the plans uncompressed.
I downloaded the file, and opened it as a dxf file in Delta Cad, but it was blank!
BTW, have you heard the Japanese Haiku-error-messages that have been circulating? I like this one:
You step into the stream
But the water has moved on.
The page is not here.
Any Cad Gurus out there? I tried downloading the file myself off of the forum, it downloaded in about a minute, opened it with Winzip, drawing came right up. I could try deleting the version on the forum and save it as Release 12, uncompressed. Any program out there incompatible with ACADR12, the oldest version you are likely to still see in use, is not going to be able to open this drawing. It may be the compression itself that is fouling up your download. I'd like to figure this out, as I really want to encourage some Cad file swapping. There must be a format I could save this in that is downloadable for most Cad programs. I will keep trying, stay tuned.
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