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California West Bow Arm Chair - the Morris chair for the 21st century
I am almost finished with a pair of Stickley-design bow arm Morris chairs, made per the drawing by American Furniture Design ("AFD"). It's all in quartersawn white oak, and is a nice match to what you can see in a Stickley showroom.
When in one of those showrooms recently, mainly to look at fabrics for upholstering, I saw their new design for the bow arm chair, the one with more curves and done in a mix of hard maple and cherry, and with tapered legs. I see that AFD has done a plan for this that they are now selling, and they give it the name seen in the title of this thread. A pic of the design, with its matching ottoman, is attached here.
I might make a pair of these now. I liked the look of what I saw in the showroom. So, starting with the AFD drawing for the hundred-year-old Stickley design, I did a Sketchup model and made the modifications to add curves, battered legs, etc. The model has been uploaded to the 3D Warehouse as shown in the pic. The AFD design has no corbels under the arm wings at the legs, but the Stickley design has them, as does the Sketchup model.
One thing I would like to do if I make this is to substitute Festool Domino biscuits for most of the mortise and tenon work. There is more curved pattern cutting in this design when compared to the mostly straight lines of the Stickley design, and the labor savings in doing dominos versus M/T work, will offset the added work required for the curves. One of the pics here shows an array of 8x24x50mm domino biscuits where the stretchers attach to the front legs. I am enhancing the model further to place dominoes wherever possible.
Rift-sawn 12/4 stock, clear and straight, is needed for the cherry legs, but cutting the tapers and finishing the cut faces will be faster than the work involved in a four-faced quartersawn white oak design.
