Hello from between the buses in Indianapolis my friends. Hope you are having a wonderful day. So today it was onto attaching and ruff shaping the front legs.

As you can see the square leg blanks have the bridal or Maloof joint cut and have been fitted. Now I want to drill for the screw that will help hold the leg in place. Here you have two options to either put one or two screws in. Two screws seems obvious for better holding and Sam Maloof used it quite a bit. The problem you can run into to is the top screw has the potential of blowing out into your seat since you need to use 3" screws the carved portion of your seat nearest to your leg can be rather low. The second thing that I have noticed when examining photos of Maloof rockers with two screws and have also seen on Charles Brock's video is that the screws seem to be places right where the two bridle joints meet i.e. the top and bottom of the joint. So the screws are actually going through a portion of space between the joints. This is only my second chair and with the first chair I put only one screw in and that worked fines, so I decided to do the same here. So I found the center of the bridle joint and marked out where to drill.

I used 3" #10 screws. I will be plugging these holes later on so I  had to drill a larger hole. Remember to always drill the bigger hole first. If you drill the smaller hole first there will be to much slop for the bigger drill bit to move around. On the smaller hole I was really only pre-drilling for the screw so it wouldn't split the wood. Then just slowly screw it tight. I used my bit and brace for both drilling and screwing in the  screw. I really liked that it was nice and slow and worked just fine.

So once the leg has been attached you can move on to ruff shaping the legs. If you watch Charles Brock's videos you will notice the leg pattern he uses is straight and not tapered. That is because he will taper the legs on the lathe. I decided to cut the pattern with the taper already in it. Then you just place the pattern in place and mark out the tapers. This should be marked on the outside or inside face of the leg.

 The you just cut down the line and stop before you reach the top of the bridle joint that will be even with the top of the seat. One note while the leg is attached to the seat mark out on the inside face and sides of the legs where the seat and the leg meet so you have a reference mark to tell you not to cut beyond that point. On my pattern the curved portion near the bridle joint is well above the limit lines so when I got to that point while cutting I didn't really have to  make a curved cut to finish the cut. I just cut straight to the point where the two kerfs met. I think the picture shows best what I am trying to explain.

So here you can see the two legs ruff cut to shape with a ruff taper on them. Not the fun part making a square leg round with out a lathe plugged or unplugged.

To here is what I did. I already had the taper cut so I just had to round the legs. Since I had scribed the  1 1/4  circumference on the ends of the legs I had a good reference to work off of. Then I just used a concave spokeshave and rasps to achieve the desired round leg. This was actually quite and enjoyable task and really wasn't that hard.

 So here you can see the leg taking shape. Once I got the round shape near the bridle joint I think started curving out the bottom portion near the joint.

So two legs ruffed out and attached. The chair is starting to look a little like a chair. Next up the back legs.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post and the progress of this project. This is definitely pushing my abilities but I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Well, take care and keep up the journey my friends, and as always God bless.

Mark Hynek

Hello from between the buses in Indianapolis my  friends. Well after much work on smoothing out the seat and a lot of muscle rub to take the pain away it was time to move on to the front legs. 

So to begin with I needed to blanks that were 19 1/2 inches long and a little wider than 2 3/4. Basically you want them wider than the width of your bridle joint in the seat so you can plane down to the exact size. You keep checking the fit until the blank  just fits.

Once you have the blank fitted you have to take a different approach than you would if you were using power tools. In Charles Brock's video he then cuts a ruff shape out using his patter for the front leg, then he turns the legs and drills a 1/2" wide 1" deep hole on each end of the leg for the dowel you will use to attach the arms and rockers. But since I am doing this unplugged and don't even have a pole lathe I have to drill those holes first. You actually do an offset turning on these legs so you can see in the photo where the leg actually will be. You either measure from the inside of the leg an 1 1/8" or measure from the outside 7/8" I should mention once the leg is fitted mark a center line on the leg on both side from top to bottom. I opted to measure from the inside since my blank really came out to an 1 7/8" and not a true 2". Then you use a compass and scribe a 1 1/4" circumference. You leg will have a tapered turn to it going from roughly 1 1/2" at the bridle joint to an 1 1/4" at the arm and rocker joint. One thing I noticed when drilling, and this  may be my technique, but I did some test holes to see which bit was best for the 1/2 dowel. I  had to go down a size from the 1/2" bit because it left to big of a hole for the dowel.

I didn't have a depth stop so I used a bandaid on my bit.

Once the two holes are drill then you can move on to the joinery. You have to measure down from the top 7"and make a mark. Then you take your calipers and get a true measurement or size of your tenon on your seat. Lock your calipers and then use them to  mark out the width of  your tenon, on your leg blank, down from the 7" mark you put on the leg blank. Then scribe the lines across your blank and on each side. Once that is done then go back to your bridle joint on your seat, and measure, using the depth gauge on your calipers, the true depth of your bridle joint, that is from the side of the seat in. It should be roughly 1/2" but check it just the same. Then set your marking gauge to that depth. and mark the sides of your leg blank as well as the back. Then carefully cut your joint out, cutting on the marked lines and then kerfing out the rest of the waste material. Then you can chop it out with a chisel.

Once that is done you can smooth out the bottom of your joint with a router plane, if  you have one. Then test fit the joint to see how your doing. Slowly clean out the joint with a chisel or router plane to obtain a good fit. Next you have to make the curves on the leg blank. What I did when I drilled out the holes on the seat part wast take a scrap piece of plywood and use the same bit to make a jig, Then as I rasped the curve in the leg blank I would use the jig to check it.

 So here you can see the joint fitted nicely. This actually was the second leg. The first leg came out a bit loose and had some gaps. But on the second try it came out quite nicely. One thing I noticed when watching Charles Brock's video was that the curve was much more pronounced. It actually went from the edge of the joint curving almost to the middle of the joint. I guess that is  the result from a 1/2" rabbeting bit. Since I had cut the initial join before working on the tenon portion I wasn't able to use a bigger bit with a bigger circumference. I think on the next chair I may try drilling the holes first then cut the join to the holes. But I think it turned out well for my first time.

 
So here are the two legs fitted to the seat. Next up drilling the holes for the screws and rough shaping the legs.

Well, my friend I hope you are enjoying the post as much as I am enjoying building this chair. So until the next post God bless and keep making shavings.

Mark Hynek

Hello from between the buses in Indianapolis my friends. Well it is another beautiful day in the bus barn to start chopping out the seat. This is the first time I have ever tried to do this by hand but I have watched many videos of guys making Windsor chairs so I am looking forward to the challenge. I think in this post I have combined days 4 through 7. I guess I was averaging about 3 hours a day in the shop. At this point when I finished smoothing out the seat I had about 21 hours in total for this project.


So here is the seat blank all glued up and ready for some chopping. I drew a new profile for the seat that had a few more curves in it.

Here is the adze I bought on ebay from a maker in Bulgaria. It is really for chopping out bowls but it was small and only $30. Only took about 2 weeks to get to Indy as well. Definitely  needed some extra care on sharpening but over all I liked it. So I slowly started to chop away and the material. This did take about 3 hours to get the seat fully hogged out with the adze. I don't know if a bigger adze would have sped up the process or not but I did like the feel of this tool in my hand.

I will fully admit this was a lot of work chopping this seat out but overall I did enjoy the experience.

 So here is the seat after 3 hours of chopping with the adze. It doesn't look like much and I wondered how in the world am I ever going to get this smoothed out.

Well here were my other helps. Two scorps or inshaves. Many say the circular tool is a scorp and the other is an inshave. But if you do a search to buy a scorp you will see both of these tools come up in your search. I got these on Amazon and they were both about $25. They are not the best out there and definitely need sharpening (a lot of sharpening) but they worked and did help the process.

 Here you can see the progress of the seat as it starts to take shape.

Once you get done with the scorps then you move onto a travisher which is a curved spokeshave. I got this one from Highland woodworking for $110 (ouch!) but that is the lowest price you will fine out there aside from making your own. It came sharp and ready to use. Beautiful tool for getting the seat to a finish ready for scraping and sanding.

Here I am cutting our two reliefs in the seat so there will be less pressure on your sciatic nerve on the back of your leg.

 Then it was onto scraping and sanding. I got this set of curved scrapers from Woodcraft for about $21. The guy at the store said they were sharp and ready to use. I always have problems sharpening scrapers. I don't know why but I just can't get the technique. But the guy was right these were sharp out of the box and produced beautiful shavings instead of dust. After scraping I was able to start with 80 grit sandpaper. I used Abrenet sandpaper which is a bit more expensive but very good sand paper. It is actually not paper but a mesh system and cuts the wood really well. It also holds up well and so you use less. I followed the course of sand paper going from 80 grit all the way to 400 which left a really smooth surface.

So here is the smoothed out chair. I can't believe I was able to get the seat to this state after chopping it out with the adze. But with persistence and the tools anyone can do this.

Well, my friends I hope you enjoyed the post. Up next the front legs, but until than as always, God bless.

Mark Hynek

Hello from between the buses in Indianapolis. So day three brings more work on the seat blanks before they can be glued up.

Here you can see the pattern I use to mark out the seat as well as the spindle locations. Once it is marked you just flip it over and trace the other side, then you have a rough idea of the seat you will be carving out. On Charles Brock's video as well as with Sam Maloof they cut out a good portion of the material to be removed on the band saw. You can only do this on the # 2, 3, and 4 blanks. Since this is an unplugged project I opted to use a frame saw I built for that. 

Here you can see the pattern I made to get an idea of the profile I wanted to shoot for when cutting out the material. I started on the #3 blank. But since you will be putting a pommel at the front of the blank you cant cut the complete profile.The pommel stretches 6"back from the front of the seat and is at the absolute center of the seat.

Here you can see me beginning to cut out the waste with my frame saw. This was a little difficult and by the third blank my blade snapped. What I did on the first blank though was to cut a number of kerfs to ease in cutting out the material. I think next time I will just opt for cutting a bunch of kerfs and then chisel out the material. 

Here you can see blank #3 with the material removed.

Since you cant completely cut out the profile on the #3 blank you need to plane down the sides where the pommel will be. What that does is to enable you to trace the profile onto the sides of blanks # 2 & 4.

Here you  can see blank #3 next to blank #4 and how you can trace the profile onto it.

Once those profiles are cut out you can now glue up  your seat. Since this is a test run regarding building a Maloof rocker by hand and since I plan on paiting it, since I used poplar, I opted to use Titebond 2 glue. If I do do a walnut rocker I hope to use hide glue.

So here is the blank all glued up ready for some serious carving.

Well I hope you enjoyed this post. I look forward to posting more on this project. It doesn't look like much now but in the end hopefully it will be a nice looking rocker.

Well, take care my friends and as always God bless.

Mark Hynek