Curly Maloof Rocker

[Mark J]

4 hours ago, Bmac said:

Now you can see I left the ends square and I need to do this to drill the dowel hole into the center of the leg. Marc does this on the lathe and that just looked sketchy to me.

Bmac what strikes you as sketchy about drilling on the lathe?  It's done all the time.

[Bmac]

5 hours ago, Mark J said:

Bmac what strikes you as sketchy about drilling on the lathe?  It's done all the time.

True, I realize that, but the way he shows it in the video looked sketchy. 

Now let me preface this with the fact that I'm not a lathe expert, I don't have all the attachments, and I have an old belt driven lathe. It works great for basic turnings but is limited beyond that. Finally, I've never drilled a hole on the lathe so experience here was also an issue.

So why I thought it was sketchy;   In his video he had the chuck and bit in place and with the piece only supported by his hands he started to drill the hole with the lathe at low speed. Once he had the hole started he increased the speed of the lathe and turned the wheel on the tailstock to engage the leg and advance the leg to the proper hole depth. I didn't like that the piece was only supported by my hands and changing speeds on my lathe is not as simple as hitting a button. Also I don't have a drill bit chuck that fits my lathe, I could get one but with it being an older lathe I've bought attachments for it and some fit well and some don't. 

In the end I've developed this technique and it has worked well for me. Also I think it's a viable way to handle this dowel hole if you don't have a lathe and you shape this leg by hand.

[Bmac]

8 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

@Bmac, the chair parts are shaping up nicely! (pun intended).

For those of us with grinders, but no Festool, I find that a 36 grit flap wheel removes stock rapidly, but leaves a surface comparable to 80 grit on a ROS. Almost as good as a round edge burr wheel for shaping, too. True, the flap wheels wear out, but at least they are an alternative to a somewhat pricey tool.

True, a grinder can do the job well and is a much cheaper alternative.

Still, the RAS is being discontinued by Festool and can be had for a decently reasonable price, around $200. 

[Chestnut]

9 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

@Bmac, the chair parts are shaping up nicely! (pun intended).

For those of us with grinders, but no Festool, I find that a 36 grit flap wheel removes stock rapidly, but leaves a surface comparable to 80 grit on a ROS. Almost as good as a round edge burr wheel for shaping, too. True, the flap wheels wear out, but at least they are an alternative to a somewhat pricey tool.

Very true but the dust collection is amazing. You can run the RAS in your shop with out a respirator if you really wanted to. Also Festool resale is pretty good if you bought for $200 you could easily sell for $150. Though i suppose a grinder you could do the same thing but i don't know if it'd be as easy.

[Coop]

12 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Looks great Bmac!! Thanks again for the journal this will be very helpful when I do mine. 

+ It too will be my go to reference. The grain in the seat is amazing. 

[Spanky]

9 hours ago, K Cooper said:

 The grain in the seat is amazing. 

I tried to get the Houston Boy, to get his big check book out!   

[Bmac]

Another quick update. I plan on fishing this week and weekend so I likely won't get back to this for a few days and I wanted to tidy this post up by reviewing what I did the past 2 days.

Now that the front legs are set I've moved to the back legs. After cutting them out on the bandsaw and flush trimming them using the back leg pattern it's on to a few other procedures before we cut the joints. First thing is to remove stock off the inside portion of the legs. We remove stock below the headrest area and leave the headrest and the seat joint area at full thickness. We aim for 1 1/4" thickness in these reduction areas and 1 1/2" at the arm joint area. Here's what that reduction looks like;

An adder block needs to be added to the inside surface of the leg at the seat joint area. This adder block should measure 3 x 5 x 3/4".Here the adder block is added and I am squaring and truing up this surface to the outside of the leg;

 

Once that is completed we need to cut a 6 degree angle into this adder block to get the classic Maloof Rocker look. Here I've marked out the orientation for this cut, this is a huge exaggeration in the angle, the real angle cut here will not be as harsh;

I'll be using a jig that is set at 6 degrees to make this cut, but I won't be doing that cut in this post, that will be done next post. A note about the adder block, try to get the block out of the same board the leg is cut from, will help with grain and color matching. 

While the glueup of the adder block was drying I took the opportunity  to knock out some other prep cuts. Doing these prep cuts during glueups really helps speed things along. When you follow Marc on his video he tackles each step and part individually. The key is knowing what you are safe to jump ahead with. Cutting the laminate strips for the rockers is definitely one area you can jump ahead with. Here are 20 strips, bundled in matching sets as they came off the bandsaw;

I still have a little prep to do with these strips but once that's done I'll glueup the rockers. It's also smart to glueup the rockers early, esp since I only have one form. Doing these early are big time savers.

Another area it is safe to jump ahead with is the spindles. Shaping these spindles is by far the most time consuming and arduous task of this project. Here they are before bandsawing;

After bandsawing I put them side by side and clamp together. Notice the irregularities;

The next step is not necessary but I think it makes for a little more consistent outcome. While clamped together I use the RAS and the sanders to even up the contours;

Flip over and don't remove clamps. Blend this other side like the first;

We then use the other spindle pattern to develop the correct side contours;

Using this pattern is not the easiest and since I like my spindles slightly more narrow I get the first spindle cut and the shape refined at the spindle sander and I use this first spindle to draw my cut lines on the other spindles. Another big time saver;

It's alittle hard to see the lines but here are the other spindles marked up and ready for the bandsaw;

One last mark for these spindles is to mark the midline front and back. This serves as a guide when shaping begins. I'll cut and shape these spindles gradually throughout the project now that I have them prepped. I will wait until the spindle holes in the seat are drilled before I start shaping though. The upper part of the spindles will be refined and shaped after the headrest is fitted. You need to cut some excess off the top of these spindle at this step so reduction and shaping of this area will be held off until then.

My next goals will be to get the back legs jointed and fitted to the seat. Once I have that done I can begin with the arms.

Time spent on these procedures; 2.5 hrs, total is now 11 hrs.

 

 

 

[Chet]

On 10/27/2019 at 3:02 PM, Bmac said:

I've always thought long grain to long grain glue joints don't need reinforcement, but alignment is key here and the domino is awesome for alignment.

I was out of town for a number of days and I was just been catching up on this thread.

When using dominos for alignment on long grain joints, I always use the smallest domino to leave as much long grain for glue as possible and I don't make any effort to get glue in the mortise or on the domino.

[Bmac]

2 hours ago, Chet said:

I was out of town for a number of days and I was just been catching up on this thread.

When using dominos for alignment on long grain joints, I always use the smallest domino to leave as much long grain for glue as possible and I don't make any effort to get glue in the mortise or on the domino.

I've often wondered about gluing in the dominos, I do it but I always wondered if it was necessary. I've also trended to using the smaller dominos, relying on the long grain bond. I love those little tiny #4 dominos, didn't use them in this project, but I do use them for most of my long grain glue ups.

It's good to hear some of my thoughts are not mine alone. 

[Chestnut]

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

I've often wondered about gluing in the dominos, I do it but I always wondered if it was necessary. I've also trended to using the smaller dominos, relying on the long grain bond. I love those little tiny #4 dominos, didn't use them in this project, but I do use them for most of my long grain glue ups.

It's good to hear some of my thoughts are not mine alone. 

I use the #4 dominoes a lot for alignment and don't glue them in. I started throwing the #8s at everything lately though because i have a huge stack of home made stock. I made a bunch of homemade stock to get rid of scraps and it was effective once set up i produced a lot in no time with the drum sander. I like the rough surface right off the drum sander as well. I feel the texture gives a good palce for glue adhesion. I could be wrong thouh, i often am.

[Bmac]

On to the back leg, adder block has been glued on, now we need to cut into the adder block at 6 degrees. The 6 degree guide Marc makes in the video series is a must and you use it for multiple operations. I've used mine for multiple chairs! The leg is clamped to the jig the cut is made, cut will be reverse for the other lag. This is not a hard operation, just need to take your time and make sure you have everything positioned correctly;

Once cut you need to be 100 % sure you have a square cut. 

Laying out the cuts for the joinery is done by marking the midline of the block and bottom of the lag;

You measure up 9 3/4" up from the bottom of the leg to where it crosses the midline of the block. Marc shows this well in his video, the mark will designate the bottom of the joint. The top mark of the joint is determined by the width of the tenon in the back seat joint.

Cutting this joint takes a steady hand, as you really can't set up the fence stops and other guides due to the shape of the leg. You basically freehand this cut and as Marc says, you sneak up on the fit. One thing that I found helped is to use double sided tape to secure a larger piece of 3/4 plywood. This gives me a larger more stable surface to hold against the miter gauge.  I use the incra miter gauge for this cut. Here is the end result with an example of how I position the plywood "helper".

Roundover the inside corner and the fit was good Need to get a pic of this. Then I did a little preglueup shaping;

Next I wanted to drill the spindle holes in the seat before I drive in the screws that help secure the front and back legs. One problem with this guild plan is when you get to assembly, the holes, if drilled at 90 degrees, cause the spindles to be positioned too far back to easily go into the headrest. This creates a problem and many others have broken the spindles by trying to push them forward during assembly. I drill the holes with a 3 degree forward leaning angle. I do this by putting a strip of wood in the front of the drill press table. I get the 3 degrees with some trial and error by moving the strip of wood forward and backward. Here is the simple setup dialed in;

And the holes drilled;

In the end we'll see how that 3 degree angle works out. I've been angling these holes forward for the last few chairs. It isn't always dead on, but it is a lot closer.

As an aside, Maloof drilled all these holes freehand!

While I was working on the seat I took the time to cut a pleasing arch in the back of the seat blank and some simple scallop cuts on the sides of the seat blank. This, in my opinion gives the seat a very pleasing shape and look. 

Then I rounded over the underside of the seat with the RAS, creating a pleasing uplifting look;

And here's the seat dry assembled, see how that roundover on the seat blank side gives a neat effect to the seat;

Next we need to drive the screws that help support the legs. With the back leg you have to make sure you don't hit the spindle hole close to back leg. Marc did this in his build. This is why I want the spindle holes cut first, Marc cut his spindle holes after driving the screws and that's how he ended up with them intersecting. To avoid the spindle hole I angle the front screw toward the back of the chair;

With the front legs you need to make sure you don't drive the screw out the top of the seat blank. This is another reason it's good to sculpt the seat gradually, gives you more bulk;

This is ideal screw placement, right through the middle of the joint into the middle of the tenon in the seat. Also you can see I did some presculpting on the left leg;

Now it's on to the arms, they are next. In prep for that you need to make sure the joint surface on the back leg is completely flat; 

I started on the arms before this post but ran into a small issue, I'll cover that completely in my next post as I'll cover the issue I ran into and the correction.

I'm including my time spent up to this post, an extra 6 hrs, now I'm sitting at 17 hrs.

 

 

 

[RichardA]

17 hours, but not sitting quite yet, but you're closer.

[Bmac]

16 hours ago, RichardA said:

17 hours, but not sitting quite yet, but you're closer.

Getting real close is right

[Bmac]

This is a continuation of last post where I mentioned I had an issue with the arms, and this should be good stuff for those looking to build this in the future. The issue arose because I'm working with 9/4 stock. The plan calls for 10/4 and after surfacing the blanks I ended up slightly over 8/4. so here's where I started and ended up....

Took my first blanks and cut a 6 degree bevel on the front underside of the arm. This allows for for correct orientation to the arm stem area. Once again you use the 6 degree jig for this at the bandsaw;

After cutting the bevels I went to the chair and it wasn't what I wanted;

So why am I off, well it's the thinner stock. Now I've run across this problem in the past where I didn't meet up perfectly at this joint, but not off by this much. In the past I just went with it and shaped the back leg to meet the arm, creating a slightly smaller joint, but I wasn't comfortable with doing that in this situation, I off by too much. So my choices are to increase the angle in the front which means I need a new jig or to glue up a 1/2" piece to my existing blank. Well I didn't want to glue to this blank since the bevel was already cut on the underside, that is the surface I need to glue the piece too. You'll see why very shortly. So I got some more stock, sized it and cut the extra 1/2" pieces from one of the thinner arm blanks. Glueup and tackle it tomorrow;

In the mean time I took a few minutes to cut out all the spindles, now they are waiting for shaping;

Next day I marked my bevel, making sure the side the piece was added to will be oriented on the under side of the arm. Same thing at the bandsaw;

Now I'm in business;

Using a straight edge I mark the angle of the joint and transfer that to my chop saw;

Perfect fit;

Marked the location for the front dowel with a dowel center, Marc does a great job explaining this;

Off to the drill press to cut the hole at the correct orientation, using the 6 degree jig again;

Next is to cut out the arm shape. The plan calls for an arm that to me looks like a boat paddle, I've altered my pattern for a more streamline arm;

Traced on blank and off to the bandsaw;

After another series of cuts here are my rough arm blanks;

Now to shaping. Start with the top of the arm. Marc does a super job walking you through this and I still refer back to the video for guidance. I've mark my areas for reduction and numbered them in order of shaping;

One note, I want to hide the added piece and the joint it makes, my reduction on the top side stops short of this joint;

Clamped to the bench and on to the RAS and rasps, now it's getting fun;

My first 2 areas reduced, now will blend them together;

Done and looks good;

On to the underside;

Here's why I want the piece glued to the bottom of the blank, the whole joint is hidden, except where it meet the front leg;

And here are the rough shaped arms. Not really rough as the RAS leaves a decent surface and I sanded both to 120 with an interface pad on the sander;

Still need to shape where the arm meets the back leg but that's done after glueup. 

The additional time to the total is 4 hrs, but this did take longer and I counted some of those hrs in the previous post. Sitting at 21 hrs.

Thanks for looking.

[Spanky]

I would get a new sawyer that would cut me 10/4 lumber. 

[B1rdhunter]

Hard to cut something that purty into big thick boards.

[Coop]

With progress like that, you deserve to go fishing. Looking great bud. 

[Chet]

Looking great B.  And getting there fast.

[Bmac]

8 hours ago, Chet said:

Looking great B.  And getting there fast.

Thanks, but it does help that I've done this before. Funny thing about this project is you feel like you are going fast then you hit the sculpting stage. For those that do this project for the first time this part can really slow you up. I've gotten much faster at the sculpting, but it still takes a big chunk of time. To me it is also the most satisfying part of this build.

[Bmac]

Quick update to cover what else I completed this weekend. After sculpting the arms I drove the screws for them. So I'm done with the arms now until I glue them on and finalizing the shape.

What I like to do next is glue the legs on to the seat blank. I'm jumping ahead of Marc's order, but since I've got the seat refined and the arms done I want to get moving on the sculpting of the chair. 

For this glueup I've tried different glues. Titebond III would work well here but the problem I've had with that is I've had trouble getting the legs to seat fully into the joint. I think the tight fit, the way titebond causes the wood to swell,  and the large surface area of these joints makes this difficult. I've used hide glue and that is a little easier to get the joints fully closed. But the easiest glue to use is epoxy. There is no swelling of the wood and the joint slides closed better with this glue than the others. So I'll be using System 3, my go to epoxy. I like it because it has a thicker consistency. Also I made sure I sanded all my pencil lines off my legs, in the past working with light woods like maple I've not cleaned those lines off and they are visible after glueup, meaning more sculpting. Ready for glueup;

Here's the consistency of System 3;

Clamped up and joints look tight;

Now while that glueup is curing, I went to a rocker glueup. In doing this project consider gluing up the rockers early, it makes for more efficient shop time. I already cut my strips for the rocker lamination, just needed to do a little more prep work. When cutting the strips on the bandsaw I cut a strip from each side of the board the jointed both sides of the boards, then cut, then jointed.... Here are my laminates;

So I have laminates that are jointed on one side and bandsaw cut surface on the other side. Now I have a nice enough surface that I could of glued them up like that, Maloof actually did this. I don't have a drum sander, which would be the perfect tool to put a more even surface on the bandsaw cut side. I could of run them through the planer on a sled, but with the curly figured nature of these strips I was concerned about that. So I used a neat little attachment for the drill press. Brock recommended this in his video for his build. I've used it in my other rocker builds. It is called Luthier's Friend sanding station;

It mounts on the drill press and is perfect for the 1 1/2" rocker laminates. It's a poor man's spindle sander with a fence. You can adjust the thickness by moving the back fence;

Here's a pic with a laminate being sanded;

So after the sanding of the laminates I glued up one rocker. I used Titebond II Extend. @Chet, I forgot to order some Unibond One, I wanted to try it for this build. Oh well there will be another time. I've used the TB II Extend with good success here. 

No pics of this glueup, but i'm about done with the "parts" of the chair. I only need to glueup one more rocker and make the headrest, right now it's all about sculpting. I'm excited to get on to this stage. I'll focus first on the leg to seat interfaces. Once I'm done there I'll glue on the arms and sculpt this area. 

This post covered 2 hrs of shop time, for a total of 23 hrs.

Thanks for looking.

[Mark J]

I love the luthier's friend.  Good to know about.

[Bmac]

Let's keep this ball rolling, a couple hours of work. Now that I've moved into the sculpting stage I get excited and anxious to see the finished product. I now have all the parts made up except the headrest. Both rockers are glued up, the arm is ready to glue to the chair and the spindles are cut out and waiting for the rasps. But before I move forward with any more glue ups I need to shape and sculpt all the leg/seat joints. You really want to do this before adding the arms as it is much easier to get to these joints without the arms attached.

Before I get into the sculpting here's a quick pic of a rocker glue up. I always do a dry run, if something is going to crack or split I'd rather find out in the dry run!

Dry run;

Ok, safe to glue;

Now to shaping/sculpting. I will start with the back leg to seat joint. This is the easier joint of the two to shape. I'll try to show different stages, hopefully it makes sense;

Joint before any sculpting, right after glue up;

To reduce the bulk of excess I use the RAS, I can go right up to the seat with the RAS;

Literally 2 minutes later, rough shaping with 50 grit done;

That was the joint on the top of the seat, here is the underside of the seat, the one part of the joint has been shaped, the other part hasn't been touched yet;

Literally 2 minutes later, same joint, different picture angle, just shaped with the RAS;

So once the RAS has done the bulk of reduction it's on to the rasps and my small sander with an interface pad on it. Above the seat I sand and shape up to the arm joint and below the seat I shape and sand half way to bottom of back leg. This pic is the top side of the seat, both joints are now sanded to 120, still have more finer sanding to do but we are looking good now;

Another angle, again this is sanded to 120. Trying to develop a graceful flow and curves from the leg to the seat;

Now to the front legs. We have a lot of bulk here and we need to be aggressive. This pic is prior to any shaping;

I first attack the sides of the joint with the RAS;

Here you can see the width of the leg now matches much better the area of the leg above and below the joint;

Now you can notice I've started to blend in the leg/seat interface;

And the inside of the front leg to seat joint, sanded to 120;

So it took me 1 hr to get the back legs cleaned up and sanded to 120. It took me 1 hr to get the front leg finished on the inside but still rough on the outer side. Probably have another 45 minutes on the one front leg to get it completely shaped and sanded to 120. 

Once I get all the leg/seat joints shaped and sanded to 120, I'll sand to 180 and then glue on the arms. Then it will be on to shaping the arm/back leg joint and starting the headrest. 

I haven't found time to start on the spindles, but I think that will change soon. I still need to glue the riser strips on the rockers, will look to do that soon also. 

Total time sitting at 25 hrs.

Thanks for looking.

 

 

[treeslayer]

Fantastic build, this is woodworking at its finest, and I’m holding you responsible for turning my brain to jello

[wtnhighlander]

This looks great! Do you find it difficult to 'see' a fair curve across the joint, when the wood grain crosses at 90* like that? 

[Bmac]

1 hour ago, wtnhighlander said:

This looks great! Do you find it difficult to 'see' a fair curve across the joint, when the wood grain crosses at 90* like that? 

That's an interesting question. I think when sculpting I don't look at the joint or the grain, I just try to see the curve or silhouette. Look at the silhouette and feel it with your hand, that helps a lot.