Thread: Rocking chair - WIP

A beautiful and very comfortable looking seat! I hope whomever receives it appreciates it

Thanks Skew's Girl.

After I finished getting the rocker laminations to the correct thickness, I joined the four pieces making up the seat. Unfortunately the width of the timber I have was a couple of inches short of making up a two-board seat, so I had to add a small piece on each side. This adds a fair bit of additional time and effort to this particular process, because instead of planing two faces (in a two-board seat) where they join, I had to plane six. I also spent some time shifting around the two larger pieces to get a reasonably balanced grain mix, and this is what I ended up with.

seat.jpg

Once that was out of the way, it was on to the back braces. Seven sets of braces are needed for the chair. These are made in sets of two, so ultimately, I end up with eight. I have two back-brace forms, so the first four are currently glued up, and will be removed tomorrow to make way for the next four. There are four laminations in each back brace: in this chair, the front is Qld maple, the centre two are silver ash, and the back is red cedar. It seems to be a reasonably attractive mix.

back_braces.jpg

I had some laminations left over from the small chair I made, and I am using those for this chair. These were originally cut oversize for the small chair, but they are borderline on length for this chair, so no doubt there'll be some tightening of the sphincter when I do the final fitting much later on. As long as I'm careful with the cutting, though, they should be all right … just. If they end up being too short, it's simply a matter of making up some more.

I'm using Titebond II for all gluing on this chair, except a couple of the joints where I'll use epoxy. I used Titebond III for the other chairs, but I wasn't happy with the dark glue line it leaves on the laminations. It would be fine for darker timbers like blackwood, but for the maple and other lighter timbers, I think the type II is better. It does have a shorter working time than the type III, so there's a bit of an adrenalin rush when gluing up the laminations.

After the back braces were set aside it was time to start the coopered headrest. This consists of six pieces trimmed at about 4° on each side to give a sweep of about 20°. I set the fence on my jointer to 4°, cut the sides, then cleaned the faces with the hand plane. The glue-up is done in three stages. The photo shows the first stage. The glued pieces will then be joined together with "pinch dogs", in two stages.

headrest01.jpg

This photo shows the angle of the headrest pieces.

headrest02.jpg

Next it was some further hacking and slashing of the back legs on the bandsaw.

back_legs01.jpg

After that was done, I glued up an adder block to the back legs to allow a pleasant sweep of the leg-seat joint. This will be cut and angled in a later stage.

back_legs02.jpg

And at this point, I ran out of clamps.

On a totally separate point, I'd like to give a thumbs-up to Henry Eckert - I ordered a rasp on Sunday, and it arrived yesterday (Tuesday); and also to Aussie Magnets - I ordered some rare earth magnets for a few jigs, and they were very quick with the shipment.

So it is possible.

Good one, Des. Watching this one with interest.

Thanks Alex.

Still at the stage where there's a lot of activity but not a great deal to show for it. Certainly there's nothing remotely looking like a chair yet.

This morning I glued up the final laminations for the last four back braces, then started gluing up the headrest pieces with the pinch dogs. This was done in two stages: first pieces 3&4 and 5&6; and once that had dried, pieces 1&2 and 3,4,5&6.

headrest03.jpg

I'm not sure whether the large pinch dog in the centre is really necessary for the join, but it doesn't take any more time, and it can't do any harm.

After that, I moved on to the seat. I trimmed it to the correct dimensions on the table saw, then cut the notches for the front and back legs. The back leg notch was cut on the table saw, and the front leg notch with the bandsaw and router.

Once that was done, I cut the rebate housing joints for the front and back legs.

seat02.jpg

These were cut with a 1½ inch rabbeting bit. Corresponding mating joints will be cut in the legs at a later stage. I'll cut these by hand with the handsaw.

This photo shows the front leg joint

front_leg_housing_joint.jpg

… and the back leg joint.

back_leg_housing_joint.jpg

The next step is to begin gluing up the rockers, cut out the shape of the front of the seat, cut the holes for the back braces in the back of the seat, then grind away on the actual sitting part. And this is where the dust-making begins in earnest.

Both sets of rocker laminations have now been glued up, and they're put aside until towards the very end. There are nine laminations in each rocker, and each lamination is just over 3mm. These are Qld maple, with a single silver ash highlight.

rocker-laminations.jpg

After the second set of rocker laminations was clamped in its form, I outlined the shape of the seat, drilled the back brace holes with a router and template, drilled depth guides for grinding, then cut the front of the seat on the bandsaw.

seat03.jpg

After that, it was time to shape the seat. For this I use a router to clear a fair amount of the waste, an angle grinder with three different Kutzall grinding discs, rasps to get the front into a reasonable shape, RO sander, and cabinet scrapers. Only the sitting part is completed during this step. The front and the outside parts will be cleaned up at later stages.

seat04.jpg

From the seat, I moved back to the back legs, and cut the adder block I glued to the legs in an earlier step in half. I then cut the blocks on both legs at 6° so that when the legs are joined to the seat, the back legs sit at that 6° angle.

back_legs03.jpg

In the next step, I start working on the front legs.

Nice work so far Des, look forward to seeing the rest as you progress.
Cheers, Ian

thanks for sharing this with us Des,
having now seen this post AND looked at you web page the word EXQUISITE comes easily to mind!

Fletty

Thanks for posting Des. I'm really enjoying the WIP.

Thanks Guys.

I managed to sneak out for a couple of hours this morning to work on the front legs. Along with the back legs, the joint connecting the leg to the seat is critical, and if not done properly, can look butt-ugly. I don't trust machines for these kinds of critical joints, so I prefer to cut them by hand. These are the tools I use to cut the joints, and the two front legs. After cutting the two sides of the joint, I remove most of the waste with the bandsaw, then use the router plane to clean up the bottom of the joint.

front_legs01.jpg

After the joints were double-checked against the seat, I set up my super high-tech router table from Bunnings, and routed the round over sections to fit in the seat joint. Once that was done, it's simply a matter of making the necessary minor adjustments with sandpaper on the round over to get a tight fit with the seat.

router_table01.jpg

And that was this morning's effort.

Once I finished adjusting the front legs to fit the joint in the seat, I glued an adder piece to both. This allows a pleasing transition curve into the seat.

front_legs02.jpg

It was then on to the back legs. I adjusted the back leg joints in the same way as the front leg joints, and this is what I was aiming for - a tight fit between the leg and seat.

back_legs04.jpg

When both legs were properly adjusted, I did some shaping work on the transition curve and the rest of the legs with the bandsaw, angle grinder, rasps and sander. I also trimmed the back and sides of the seat to its rough final shape.

It was then glue-up time. The back legs are glued first, because more work has to be done on the front legs. And at last it begins to look something like a chair.

back_legs05.jpg

While that was drying, I trimmed the front legs to shape, including the curve into the seat. Because it was a few days since I had adjusted the front leg joints to fit, the seat had moved slightly, so I had to make a couple of minor adjustments. With all the wood removed from the actual sitting part of the seat, this slight movement is quite normal, and is to be expected. It was then time to mix the epoxy, and glue up the front legs.

front_legs03.jpg

The pieces attached to the tops of the front legs allow a curved transition between the leg and the arm rest.

The next step is the headrest.

"Pinchdogs", hurrah!
"Router plane", hip,hip, hooray!
Wondering what trade you did in your past?
Great thread/wip.

A bit of catching up to do.

I cut the front and back of the headrest to the correct thickness on the bandsaw, then cleaned up the bandsaw marks with a sori-ganna (compass plane) on the front (concave), and a normal kanna on the back (convex). I then did some heavy sanding to get a smooth finish on both faces. After it was reasonably smooth, I gradually trimmed the ends to fit, then cut curves at the top and bottom and cleaned those up with the grinder and sander. Finally, I drilled the holes for the tops of the back braces. The headrest is attached temporarily to the back legs by a few screws. It will be removed and replaced a few times before it is finally glued in place with the back braces.

headrest04.jpg

Once the headrest was attached, it was time to do some preliminary shaping of the seat/leg joints and the sides of the seat.

shaping01.jpg

Next, on to the arm rests. They have a cove cut into the tops, and this is the jig I use for this.

arm_rest01.jpg

This process kicks up a massive amount of dust, and even with a dust mask, those black boogers are shockers

The cove is cut at a slight angle, and this is used to give a comfortable rest position for the arms.

arm_rest02.jpg

All mating surfaces at the front are planed for clean faces. The back joint connecting the back leg to the arm rest is sanded to a tight fit using several clamps and a couple of holding jigs. It's an end grain to face grain joint, so it's reinforced with a 100mm screw. It's then time to glue up.

arm_rest03.jpg

The next step is shaping the underside of the arm rests, including the transitions into the front and back legs.

arm_rest04.jpg

I still have a bit to do on the bottoms, then I'll move on to the tops, and do some more work on the back legs where they connect with the arm rests.

Once this is done, it's on to some more work on the back braces.

I finished off the arm rests and the transitions into the back and front legs. The arm rests are probably one of the more difficult aspects of the chair, simply because the two need to be as close to identical as possible, and they need to be comfortable. There is a small "landing" at the back of the arm rest just in front of the rear leg transition to support the arm just below the elbow, and if this is not the right shape it can be fairly uncomfortable. The shape of the arm rests will be further refined during the final sanding.

arm_rest05.jpg

It was then on to the back braces. Yesterday I glued a small adder piece to the bottom of each of the back braces to give them some more meat and strength where they fit into the bottom holes. This piece is the same type of timber as the rear lamination (red cedar).

back_braces02.jpg

I then measured the size of the back brace holes, and marked the back braces for cutting the bottom "tenons" (for want of a better name). I cut these on the table saw with a shop-made tenon jig.

back_braces03.jpg

A mistake here will completely ruin all the back braces, so I checked quite a few times before committing to the cut.
Fortunately there were no disasters, so I then cut the curves on the bandsaw, and cleaned up the bandsaw marks.

back_braces04.jpg

The next step is carefully trimming the bottom "tenons" to fit, then marking and trimming the tops.

Using a fine rasp and sandpaper, I rounded off the "tenons" on each of the back braces to fit their respective holes in the seat, inserted them into the seat, then marked the tops to length. Because of the curved headrest, the length of the back braces is slightly different (1&7, 2&6, and 3&5 are the same lengths, becoming progressively longer, and 4 is slightly longer still). I then cut the "tenons" on the top in the same way on the table saw.

back_braces05.jpg

Similarly, I used a fine rasp and sandpaper to round these off to fit the holes in the headrest. I then rounded over the sides on the router table with a round-over bit, and gave them a trial fitting to make sure everything fit OK and there were no hidden disasters. Fortunately, it came together quite well. And it's starting to look something like a chair.

back_braces06.jpg

There's still a lot more sanding to do before they go back in and the headrest is finally glued up.

Before starting on the back brace final sanding, I glued the laminated transition stacks to the rockers. These allow the attractive transition curve from the front and back legs to the rockers.

rocker-laminations02.jpg

Next, it's on to the final sanding of the back braces, the remainder of the seat, and the inside parts of the back legs, then the headrest is glued to the back legs.

Gradually getting towards the end.