Thread: WIP - Maloof inspired rocker

The scrapers look good. You'll have fun getting a hook onto all those

Originally Posted by groeneaj

Your new workshop is looking good by the way - I bet you're happy after all those years without one.

you betcha!

Originally Posted by groeneaj

I've been tracking my order from the US every few hours and was getting annoyed as it stated that it hadn't left yet.

So the last thing I expected when I was watering my front garden this morning was to receive my package!

I'm so happy it's arrived and will get stuck into the seat and leg joinery over the next few days.

I ordered some small scrapers which will make scraping the curves a lot easier. The DVD will also be handy.....

And the matched set of router bits [ATTACH]

I would be interested to hear your comments on those router bits groeneaj , I found mine to be excellent to use.
Cheers, Ian

Originally Posted by NCArcher

The scrapers look good. You'll have fun getting a hook onto all those

Yep! They're smaller than I thought they would be. I think that's a good thing though given the tight curves.

This morning I got about an hour of workshop time before work.

This is the rear left and right side of the seat where the rear legs are joined.

I marked out so I'd be left with a 1" tenon.

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Then used my router to remove the material with the rabbet bit. This process was a lot more tricky than I thought. Given the lack of support for the router base I was finding the router was unbalanced. So I used some support pieces which helped.

If I had my time again I'd use the router table.

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I only managed to get one joint cut so over the weekend I'll finish the the other side plus the joinery for the front legs. Then I'll glue the seat up and start carving!

This is such an awesome project!

Looking good! What's the width of the rebate please?

Originally Posted by Lappa

Looking good! What's the width of the rebate please?

1/2"

Dunno if this was mentioned in the thread. The Wood Whisperer Guild worked with the Charles Brock plans and made a rocker. You can buy access to the videos and there are hours of detailed videos of Marc (TWW) building the rocker. I bought them this year to with the aim to start a rocker soon - just got to find the time. I recommend it getting them as they are a great resource.

Originally Posted by lewisc

Dunno if this was mentioned in the thread. The Wood Whisperer Guild worked with the Charles Brock plans and made a rocker. You can buy access to the videos and there are hours of detailed videos of Marc (TWW) building the rocker. I bought them this year to with the aim to start a rocker soon - just got to find the time. I recommend it getting them as they are a great resource.

G'day Lewis,

I'm using Marc's videos for the build and I agree they're incredibly helpful. I actually got them on my phone and I often reference them during the building process.


For an update- I worked out how to rout out the other tenon for the rear of the seat. I'll post a pic a bit later on today.

Cheers

With 4 days off work I thought I could get some serious work done on the rocker.

However, I somehow committed myself to painting the house and I have not stopped!

This is how I routed out the other tenon. I used the other seat piece secured to the bench with clamps and holdfasts to create a flat surface for the router to sit on.

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This afternoon I finished the seat joinery for the rear and front legs. The front joinery was a lot easier to cut. It was a 1 3/4" wide X 1/4" deep notch cut out on the table saw. Then I used the rabbet bit on both sides just like the rear joinery.

I also glued up the seat which also went well. Because 3 out of the 5 boards have 3 degree bevels there is no way I could have accurately aligned each board without the use of dominos. Sam Maloof used to use a dowel machine to help align his seat boards.

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This is the front joinery. I'll cut a 3 sided dado on the legs that fits the tenon and use my matching round over bit to create the maloof joint.

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So next up will be cutting out my front leg blanks and doing the joinery to fit the seat.

I can pretty much start grinding the seat but I'd like to do some more practice. The tricky part is keeping a steady hand when creating the outline....

Cheers!

I ended up getting a new angle grinder the other day. I was recommended this particular model from the Australian supplier of Holey Galahad wheels. It's a Makita 1050W and fits the wheels perfectly.

It's really comfortable to hold as the handle sits nicely in the hand. It's also relatively light compared to other grinders.

Im also going to buy the course Galahad wheel to help remove the bulk of the seat material.

I've been absolutely flat out over the past two weeks and haven't had much of a chance to work on the chair. Next week I'll be able to get a fair bit done..... hopefully!

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I got the joinery completed for the front legs this afternoon.

I started with my two front legs and a third blank which was used as a test piece to dial in for a perfect fit.

Remember I'm using imperial plans so bear with me for my measurements. The leg blanks measure 19 1/2" long by 2 3/4" wide and 2" thick.

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I then used my table saw with stops to create a dado. I snuck up on the cuts to get a nice fit.

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Then I cut the three sided dados on all three blanks.

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This is the round over bit that matches the rabbet bit used for seat joinery. It has to be precisely set up in order to get a nice gap free joint. The bearing is flush with the fence and the outer edges of the bit is flush with the table.

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I ended up with a joint that I'm relatively happy about.

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I also did some marking out on the legs before I trace the template on and cut it on the bandsaw. I marked out the centre of the leg blanks which will help when it comes time to sculpting.

I also marked out the end grain for the offset tapered turning that Nick is going to do for me.....

I'm going at a pretty slow pace.... Hopefully I can get some more progress done over next week or so. I also ordered the course Holey Galahad wheel this morning which will be handy when I need to grind away a lot of material.

Thanks for watching!

I traced the template to the front legs this morning and cut them out on the bandsaw.

My bandsaw all of a sudden is playing up. Firstly, one of the guides came loose so I had to take a trip to Felder to get it replaced. Thankfully they have excellent customer service and fixed/replaced it straight away.

Now the blade is not tracking properly. This has been ever since I installed a 1"4" blade. I need to spend some time adjusting and tuning the bandsaw.

Cheers!


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