Thread: WIP - Maloof inspired rocker

Andy, use the dowel maker to make a dowel from an offcut. That way if you do carve down to it it won't be noticed. 3/8 should do.

Fletty has the veritas plug cutters that work really well

Originally Posted by NCArcher

Andy, use the dowel maker to make a dowel from an offcut. That way if you do carve down to it it won't be noticed. 3/8 should do.

I think that's the way to go. I can always make it smaller using that dowel plate of yours that I have here.

Paul- I ordered a 3/8" snug/taper plug cutter last week. It should be arriving this week.

Originally Posted by groeneaj

...... I didn't angle the drill in the right direction and it came through the front side.

It's not a big issue although it felt like it at the time. The front will be carved away and you won't see it. But I'll have to enlarge the hole and put a hardwood dowel and drill it again.
Anyone got any suggestions or advice as to the minimum size hole/dowel I should fill it with? ....

Andy, I'm having trouble visualising the problem - if you've come through at the front, surely the hole is going to be still visible when you carve more wood away? Unless you are going to carve the entire hole & screw away, which is obviously not what you intend.

I clearly haven't fully grasped your problem, but when I have an unwanted hole in a visible area, I try to avoid using round plugs to repair it. No matter how snug the plug and how carefully I match the grain, the perfect regularity of the plug tends to show, & usually moreso when a finish is applied. It's possibly worse for me because being color-blind, I pick up slight variations in texture, and irregularities that 'normal' eyes don't easily see. So instead of making the hole bigger & risk making it more obvious, I usually whittle a stick of matching material, matching grain direction as much as possible, then drive that into the existing hole - the slight irregularities in the whittled stick tend to be less obvious than a neat, round line. If you use glue, choose carefully - the glue soaks into the end-grain of the hole & plug if it's a cross-grain hole you're repairing, and can show up like a beacon when you apply a finish - this is most pronounced with synthetic glues, hide glue usually doesn't show as much.

A method I use to fix a mis-aligned or stripped screw-hole which won't be visible, is to whittle a stick of pine or other soft wood (pine is preferable because it is long-fibred), a bit over-size (but not too much) and drive that into the mis-drilled hole. You can apply a bit of glue if you wish, but it doesn't seem to be necessary. Even if you new hole overlaps the stick a bit, it still forms a good, sound thread when you insert the screw - I guess it's helped by compression from the taper of the screw as it's forced in....

Cheers,

Ian - I'm not concerned about plugging the holes in the headrest as this has been carved away already.

I am more concerned about the holes in the top of the legs and when it comes time to sculpt and transition from the leg to the headrest.

I went into the workshop this morning and had a closer look. The top hole is obviously closer to the edge and I need to be careful. I'm thinking of using a walnut dowel (not making the hole any bigger) and gluing it in place. That way if I happen to sculpt that deep it won't be as noticeable.

The middle hole should be ok but I still need to fill it in order to drill the new hole.

I ended up plugging the holes with a shop made walnut dowel (off cut from the leg).

I've done a bit of research and I'm confident that I won't be grinding/sculpting deep enough in the areas where the filled holes are. In the unlikely chance that I do go that far, hopefully the dowel is a close match and it won't be noticeable.

So basically the dowels are there to allow me to re drill the holes. This time in the right direction! I managed to drill the holes today and attach the screws. I'm happy now!

I've now almost completed the rough carving with the Galahad discs. The fine disc leaves a relatively smooth finish, but it's still bumpy and needs to be levelled out with rasps. I'm also going to remove some more material from the top section and give it more of a curve. There is still lots of work to be done but I'm happy where it's at.

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My next priority is to get the legs glued up to the seat. The leg glue up is a significant phase of the build as I can't attach the arms or the headrest until this is done.

So I've continued work on the seat. After looking at it for a couple of weeks I wanted more of a curve in the thigh area. I also wanted the front to appear thinner that it actually is.

So first up was drawing some layout lines on the underside of the seat.

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The I used a combination of my Galahad wheel, die grinders and rasps to flatten out the front portion and create a hard line at the front.

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I think I'm almost there with the rough sculpting. There's a few high spots to take care of but I'm almost ready to start sanding the seat.

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I continued working on the headrest to leg transition this afternoon. I started by cutting the horns on the top of the legs. I've seen rockers with and without horns but I really like it.

After cutting the horns I started blending in the legs into the headrest. The headrest is only screwed and not glued so I'm not getting carried away. I really enjoyed this process as it's the first time two parts become one. I think I'll spend a few more hours on the headrest then focus on getting the seat sanded.

I've been using my new rotex sander on the underside of the seat and it's seriously awesome- very happy with it. I think it will make quick work of the final shaping and sanding of the seat.

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I've started sanding the seat in preparation for gluing up the front and rear legs.

I started by using my new rotex which is a very aggressive sander and capable of removing lots of material fast. I started with 36 grit with a very soft pad and used it to remove the grinding marks. I used it like a grinder skimming over the surface and allowing the soft pad to conform to the shape of the curved seat.

I continually felt for high spots and used my grinder when the material to be removed was too much for the rotex. I spent a good 30 to 40 minutes with the 36 grit refining the shape and once happy I moved on to 50 and 60 grit which is where I'm up to now. I'll probably sand the seat up to 600 grit.

The pommel (pointy bit at front of seat) still needs to be refined which is probably what I'll do next.

I'm happy how things are tracking so far. Still plenty to do but I may just get it finished in time.... (4 weeks).

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Looking good, Andy, but be careful how you sit on that pommel!

Originally Posted by AlexS

Looking good, Andy, but be careful how you sit on that pommel!

Good call! You're not wrong there....

You can sort of see my layout marks in that last pic on the pommel. I'm going to sculpt the pommel so it's low at the back and slopes up to the point of the chair.

A huge thanks to Fletty for giving me this really nice piece of Huon pine! It's more dense than I am used to with huon and it has some really nice colour in it.

I'll be using about 6 strips of 4.5mm laminations for the rockers. 5 walnut and 1 huon and I think it'll be a really nice contrast. I'll use it for the screw plugs also.


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I've got the chair dry assembled with screws to have a look at where I need to remove more material from. There will be a lot removed when it's glued up but I can save myself some time by doing parts of it now. The arms for example need more attention.

It still looks very bulky but I'm happy where it's at now. Areas like the front corners will be refined and blended into the legs which will be rounded over. That will be done when it's glued up.

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The back slats need to be sculpted also which isn't all that difficult. The hard part will be making the 1/2" (bottom) and 3/8" (top) spindles without breaking the ends. I've started work on two of the slats when I realised I was better off doing the spindles (dowels) first in case I did break a sculpted slat. I made an extra one for this reason as I knew they would be tricky to do.

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I've also started working on the bending form for the rockers. I'm jumping ahead a little bit but I'm keen to see how they look....

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Looking good

Brilliant.

Ross