rocking chair build

[danscot]

Since getting my Shopsmith back into decent operational condition I'm afraid I've been just a lurker on this forum. I've quietly been cutting bits of wood for projects round the house & I've turned a few bowls.

But I'm now on a mission.

My oldest daughter has just made me a grandad & I volunteered myself to build a nursing/rocking chair. I actually volunteered around Christmas but only got really started on it a few weeks ago. Of course, the wee man arrived early so I'm now more than a little overdue with the chair!

We had just split a bunk bed down to a single & one half of the old bed had gone to the garage as a timber source. It seemed fitting to use Laura's old bed (from when she was about 3) as the raw material for what may become an heirloom (note my confidence in the quality of my workmanship - progress will tell!)

Before I could do any design I had to work out what I had available & measure up the bed wood - this is the raw material complete with a vast number of stickers, courtesy of number 2 daughter! Took me ages to scrape them off :

[ATTACH]21077[/ATTACH]

and after breaking it down:

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So I was then able to put something together in Sketch-up:

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Which amazed me because it actually looks quite acceptable. Whether the build will be acceptable remains to be seen!:rolleyes:

So before I could start on the real build I realized that I would have to glue up some of the planks to achieve thick enough components - rockers & side panels in particular. I also had to turn the old chunky bed legs off center to form the arm rest supports in preparation for the more elegant chair legs:

[ATTACH]21079[/ATTACH]

Before & after - the freshly turned pair will form the front legs & arm rest support:

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I'm currently half way through prepping the seat components (the first stage) so the project is not very far on. Still plenty of time for suggestions from the forum to be incorporated!

Next installment when I get a chance!

[terrydowning]

Looking forward to watching this build progress.

Do keep us posted.

[reddog5362]

Gonna grab some popcorn and wait for the next installment. The sketch up drawing looks great.

[berry]

I waiting to see more of this project.

[danscot]

The timber is pine with a heavy coat of varnish - I found out it was a heavy coat when I tried sanding it using the conical sanding disc. I love that attachment but it didn't take long for it to clog up badly with the varnish sandings; when I say "clog up" I actually mean "formed a smooth polished flat surface over the abrasive"

I ended up polishing the varnish remaining on the wood instead of stripping it

I'm not sure of the best procedure for clearing that from the abrasive - I ended up using the corner of an old chisel to break the patina that had formed & then a wire brush both with the machine static & then running at slow speed. I finished it off with an old wine cork to dress the abrasive. It worked but was time consuming.

So I started hand planing:

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& then resorted to a power planer just to get down to the wood. Then I was able to use the SS disc to flatten the boards:

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I was thankful for the Shopsmith's versatile table system - I only have the basic 510 kit but I haven't been stuck yet. Although I have added a single roller stand.

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Some of the boards had warped, particularly one of the long ones. These are to form the upper sides of the chair back so I made up a paper template to maximise my use of the wood (to be able to make the side panels long enough I had to overlap the top 18" or so of each side so they had to be narrow enough to fit into 1/2 of the board width) & then I cut the boards roughly with a jig-saw. That made the planks manageable & I machine planed & then hand planed the twist out of them before gluing up.

It seems to have worked

[ATTACH]21090[/ATTACH]

Above are the side panels for the back featuring my stunningly accurate freehand cut all set for the glue up.

My limited collection of clamps means that I can only glue 1 assembly at a time however I've been able to glue the 2 matching parts at the same time - these will be the rockers:

[ATTACH]21089[/ATTACH]

Part 3 to follow & then I'll be up to where I am now - not far enough!

Of course, I blame the baby - if he hadn't arrived last week I'd be much further on And this weekend we'll be making the 2 hour drive to visit mum, dad & the wee man so I'll lose another weekend of building.

Yes, all his fault, nothing to do with me being a slow worker at all

[danscot]

Back again after an extended break from this project -still not my fault , I had to get a car back on the road - but that's another story !!!

Oil & grease free once more, I have now got the seat assembly well under way:

The seat slats are tongue & grooved to allow movement whilst spreading the load. The Shopsmith was great for this but there are a few scorch marks on the wood - I'm wondering if the blade is as sharp as it should be?:
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Health & Safety Disclaimer: Don't worry about the insert screws - I'd just taken them out to change the insert & then decided I should grab a couple of pics.

Below are the front & rear seat frame parts. Comparison with the Sketch-up drawing shows that the physical seat is shaped with a curve in the middle - I couldn't work out how to do that in Sketch-up. I'm thinking that may be more comfortable and the same will apply to the seat back as well. The curve resulted in a very rough routing job - I'm just not set up for routing curves so a lot of chiseling & sanding ensued The lip was cut after the routing to give the seat slats a solid base. That slot is there for the seat slats to sit in unglued so they can flex a little when sat on

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The upper half of the slat is cut away to slide into the front & rear frames to leave the top surface flush - I do intend to finish sand the seat panel to remove any bumps!

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This shows the overall idea; the side panel will have a nice straight slot routed into it to accommodate the tongue on the outer slat ( I can do straight!!); same on the other side.

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And this is close to what it will look like when assembled:

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- I've still to make up the front & rear cross-members which will tenon into the legs. I'm also debating putting a central cross-member under the slats with just a bit of a gap to allow the slats to bend but close enough to stop the bend before they reach the break point! I think I'm being paranoid but I'd hate to try to replace a slat after glue-up!

I think I'm moving in the right direction but progress is liable to be painfully slow - hopefully no-one is sitting on the edge of their workshop stool waiting for the next episode. I'll post that as soon as I can

[tgamel]

Nice job so far, not sure if I could do that or not. I am a decent carpenter, but not quite a good woodworker yet. I need to work on my joinery skills more. Looking forward to your completion.

[danscot]

Thank goodness for public holidays! Today was May Day here in the UK so I had the day off work - That gave me Sunday & Monday to get some more of the chair done.

I've got the seat part glued up & I'm quite happy with that - front & rear crossmembers gave me a chance to use my biscuit jointer for the first time. I bought it because it was on special offer at a local store months ago & I've been itching to use it ever since The middle one was the first test piece & it went a little deep - hence the bigger biscuit

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So with the seat ready it's time to move onto the rocker cutting. I used a hot melt glue gun to stick both rocker blanks together to ensure I had identical curves. The bandsaw made short work of that and it came out reasonably well considering it was guided by hand. It's a bit late after the event but if anyone has an accurate method for cutting totally smooth curves I'd like to hear. A fair amount of sanding followed and I'm now happy with those.

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The other shaped cut is the side panel to form the frame of the seat back. Again there are 2 of these so the hot melt glue was used again. I double checked all my angles to make sure the cut would be spot on:

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Then it was back to the bandsaw and another satisfactory cut. The freehand cut I had done with the jig saw back in part 2 turned out just right (more by good fortune than skill!) - the off-cut shows how tight it was to the edge - the spaces are where the blade just shaved the part.

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I'm pleased with the perfect joint I got from gluing the 2 planks together to form the rockers & the side panels; there are no voids so all the effort I put in to flatten them paid off.

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Well, that's the complicated shapes cut; the next source of difficulty looks like being the fact that I have no right angles in this build just lots of 3 degrees, 5 degrees, 10 & 12 degrees - I didn't realize that it would make it such a challenge! So the side frame build is next ... a lot could go wrong with that part.

[swampgator]

Only suggestion I have about reducing saw marks is to use a smaller blade which will greatly reduce your feed rate. For a very small blade, it's taking off a lot of wood, so if you have the patience, it will show very small cuts and you will still have to sand. Drum sanders for the SS mounted to a drill chuck will give excellent results.

Looking forward to seeing the remainder of the project.

[danscot]

Well, tonight I got the bases of the 4 legs cut to the angles needed for them to join the rockers, plus the tops of the legs cut to support the seat. I decided that I would have to clamp it all together to see how it would sit; I couldn't work out the weight distribution from my drawings - the rocker sat perfectly in those no matter how I varied the design.

So I clamped the legs to the seat & perched that assembly on the rockers - and its not sitting right at all :

[ATTACH]21344[/ATTACH]

The whole assembly is leaning forward too much & the seat is almost tipping the occupant out the front:

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Anyway, despite that, it looked so tempting that I just had to sit on it. It didn't collapse which has filled me full of hope for a reasonably successful outcome. But first I'll have to get those leg to rocker angles right

I then decided to attach the sides of the back - not where they will actually be left to right (they'll slot into the legs) but more to see what the profile will look like.

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There are certainly changes to be made - the back is too tall & I think I need to tip the seat back a bit, possibly by shortening the back legs. There is a bit of experimentation to be done before I join those sides to the back legs. Then I'll clamp it all together again & decide on the shaping that is to be done on the legs & sides - right now it's very chunky. I want it to "flow" a bit.

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So I have the weekend ahead of me and, unless I get sidetracked with life going on around me, I hope to make some real progress. You can be sure I'll post the results here.