Hello from Indianapolis my friends,

Well, it is day two of the Maloof inspired rocker build. I put in about 5 hours today so I have a total of about 10 hours in. Today it was doweling the five blanks together for a stronger bond as well as to help against slippage when I do the glue up since the three middle pieces have a 3 degree angle on them.  

I used 3/8 dowels 2" long and put them about a half inch up from the bottom. Once the seat is carved out the thin portion of the seat will be about an inch thick. 

Once of my concerns drilling the holes for the dowels was that I would have to drill at a 3 degree angle on the pieces that received the angle. I used a simple bit and brace with a 3/8 brad point bit. I had been using my small 4 inch square to help me stay square when drilling. When I got to the angled pieces I notice the small square staying in place with out falling off and followed the 3 degree angle perfectly. So that went well.

Once the doweling was done it was onto cutting the joinery for the bridle joints that would receive the legs. Those cuts were made on the outside pieces #1 & #5. For the back leg you have to cut a chunk out that is 3" long from the back and 2 3/4 wide from the side. 

My 300 mm ryoba worked well on the cross cut but was a bit ruff on the rip cut. So I went out and purchased a 210 mm ryoba. The smaller brother cut well on the rip cut,

For the front legs you measure up from the back 18", make a mark and then measure 13/4 from that mark. That is the with of your rabbit that you will cut out. It is also only 1/4 deep. I simply kerfed out the portion, then chiseld the majority of it out and cleaned up the bottom with my small router plane. One thing I notice as I had cut many rabbits such as this, and had problems in the past with finishing with a nice flat bottom was that before I had cut right to the intended depth then chiseled out, which resulted in a rocky bottom before I could even attempt to use the router plane. This time I cut short of the final depth, chiseled out and then routed to my final depth. The result was a much better and cleaner bottom.

So here you can see the beginning cuts for the joints for the four legs.


 Next you have to mark out for a 1" tenon that will be cut out. My stock came out at 1 7/8 so I had to cut down from the top and the bottom 7/16.

 Then you also have to mark the top and bottom a 1/2 in which will be the depth of your 1" tenon.

You need to put a radius on the inside corners the back receiving one on the top and bottom and the front receiving two, top and bottom. I used a forstner bit to get a clean cut and bottom. It took a little longer than a brad point bit but left a very nice surface.

 So here are the radius' drilled out. A total of 12 holes drill top and bottom.

Next I cut the out side marks and then kerfed the rust and then slowly chiseled the waste out and cleaned up the joint with my router plane.

Here you can see what the male portion of the bridle joint looks like once it is finished.

Overall it was a good day in the shop and I really enjoyed cutting out these joints by hand. You can easily do this with a power router and a 1/2 rabbiting bit. But I have to say a friend came by and saw the finished joints and said, "Oh I see your using a power router. Looks nice." I told him I didn't have a power router and cut them out by hand. He couldn't get over how well they looked.

Well my friends the next post will cover cutting out the ruff shape of the seat on the inner 3 boards so to help with stock removal once it is glued up. Hope you enjoyed this post. So until next time God bless.

Mark Hynek