Making a Morris Chair |
The first thing I do in making a Morris chair is to select wood. I buy all my wood from Atlantic Hardwoods in Portland Maine. It is a great place to do business and I feel that I am among friends when I am there. All the wood I buy is rough sawn. In my shop I plane it to the various thicknesses needed to build a chair. |
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The pieces of wood are planed to thickness and cut to size. Next the outlines of all the curved pieces are traced on with patterns and the curves are roughly sawn out on the bandsaw, to remove excess material. |
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Next, the curves are refined on the shaper. The wood is clamped onto a jig. The curved edge of the jig rolls against a bearing on the shaper. The spinning cutters duplicate the curved edge onto the chair part. In total, there are 20 jigs required to make a Morris chair and an ottoman. |
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| I make the spindles by hand on a lathe. The goal is to make them so similar that they appear to be identical. | The sides of the chair are put together with long tenons and deep mortises. Once glued, they make a very strong joint. |
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| I mortise bed iron hooks and hook plates into the sides of the chair and the front and rear stretchers. These permit the chair to come apart for moving or shipping by simply tapping the stretchers upwards | |
I make all the exposed metal parts of the chair myself. I buy the metal stock in twenty foot long strips from a steel yard. Then I cut, forge, bend, drill, weld and grind the individual chair parts. Finally, they are wire-brushed to a gray natural steel finish and sprayed with clear lacquer. By making these metal parts myself, I retain control of the appearance of the entire chair frame. |
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To support the seat cushion, I make a rigid oak-framed box spring with steel zig zag springs that are hand tied. I cover the springs with specialized dacron padding as well as denim deck cloth. |
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