Maloof Inspired Rocker Plans

[Carroll Courtney]

Yep,that also has me worried.Brian,looking at the dvd and some of the pics, are the holes for the back spindles elongated?If so why?
My BS is from the late 50's or early 60's its the Delta/Milwaukee 20" with the foot break which is really not needed.The breaking system was missing parts so I had to fab the breaking pad arm.Lots of time spent on that,just was'nt needed.Still have some tuning to do and waiting on a blade from Timberwolf for resawing.
Brian is there a trick to getting to the bottom of this post without have to scroll through all the post?Not a computer person here so I don't know my way around.----Carroll

[Brian Kent]

First, how in the world did you see the elongated holes in the pictures? You are right about that. Chuck Brock's technique is to drill the holes for the spindles straight in, then use a reamer to elongate the forward edge. That gives a little leeway for the spindles to move a little forward and fit right in the headrest.

He recommends a reamer from Lee Valley, one of these:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...80,42240,53317

But I may try to make one like this, only with the blade only on one side. It just needs to turn 1/2 turn, from the 3 to the 9 o'clock position, to scrape the front.

On getting to the last post, when you open the post, there is a page marker near the top that has "page 1,2,3,4,5,last". Choose "last" and it takes you there.

[Prashun Patel]

I turned my front legs yesterday. I'm proud bkz a) this is the 1st thing I've ever turned, b) my tools haven't arrived, so I used a found 3/8" roughing gouge to do the work. Practiced on scrap and then got confidence to do it for real. Maintaining and finessing a straight taper was easy once i realized I could use a rasp and a microplane on the lathe once the parts were made rough round with the gouge.

The 3rd/4th pics show the arm to rear leg intersection. I'm low by about 3/4". Instead of recutting the arm taper, I'm going to taper the tops of the front leg stems. Wish me luck!

Caroll, I found this forum much easier to follow if you change the user options on your Control Panel to list posts in latest-first order - not threaded. In threaded mode, I always missed some posts...

[Brian Kent]

Those are some fine looking legs!

[Carroll Courtney]

Thanks Shawn for the tip,and your chair is "Looking Good".I just got back from the hardwood place purchaseing some 2"x7" maple just for the back and front legs.My seat will be 1 3/4,next time I will wait for the plans to arrive.---Carroll

[Prashun Patel]

Phew. Got the arms fitted and rough cut. This part was painful for me. Balancing and clamping the leg was hard while trying to finagle the fit. I decided to go with a blind dowel per the design.

I had to take a couple degrees off the tops of the front legs to get the arms to hit the back legs correctly. Can't figure out how that happened; all my angles seem to check out. Fortunately, I remembered to drill the holes in the legs AFTER this was done, since the holes for the dowel need to be perpendicular to the mating faces.

[Carroll Courtney]

Shawn, it works.Newest first,now thats nice.Thanks again Carroll

[Prashun Patel]

Hey Brian, I am having trouble trying to figure out how to screw the arms to the back legs. I can't figure out how CB's jig works. How did you do it? I cut the tip of the arms already, so there's no good clamping surface.

Howdja do it?

[Brian Kent]

I just fiddled around with a clamp with a rubber tip that set against the front of the arm, then set the other part of the clamp just below where I wanted to drill. I had to shuffle around a bit to get something that held well.

Also, I used another clamp, side to side, that lined up the sides of the arm with the side of the back leg.

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks, B. I figured it out. I cut a beveled block of wood and clamped it to the top of the arm such that the rear of the back leg and the bevel were about parallel. Then I clamped these 2 sfc's together to get the arm tight to back of the leg.

Also, a question on how you screw (): I'm using the Spax's from BORG, which are threaded almost up to the head, unlike traditional wood screws. I'm also not using a Miller drill bit. I only find it possible to 'pull the joint tight' by drilling a hole as wide as the shank through the top piece and a reg sized pilot thru the bottom, such that the threads only engage in the bottom piece. If I drill a regular sized pilot thru both pieces, I really gotta clamp hard to get the joint to screw tight. And I don't want to clamp tight each time, because it's hard to line up the pilot holes exactly, yada yada...

Is this how you're doing it too?

Also, are you planning to use a tapered reamer to adjust the holes for the spindles?

[Brian Kent]

In direct answer to your question, I do have 2 children but beyond that I'm not tellin' ()

I am using the miller dowel bit, but you are right about screw hole sizes. Even with the Miller dowel bit a couple of my re-attached joints are not completely tight. I'll have to clamp for the actual joint when the time comes.

I will use a tapered reamer. I am trying to make one myself, even simpler than on line plans. Just a pointy piece of wood with a slot that holds a jig saw blade, smooth side facing out. If it works, I'll post a picture. If not I'll buy the reamer from Lee Valley. It's not too expensive but I would rather order more than one item at a time for shipping costs.

[Carroll Courtney]

Guys,its my intent to make several of these rockers with little differences between each over afew yrs time.How are others preserving the patterns for future use?What I'm doing is taking all the cutouts and gluing them to 1/2BB then cutting the pattern to the line.Then my plan is to shoot a couple of coats clear finish on all sides and edges so that the humidity won't do damage to the templets.I have taken paper and trace out the patterns or templets and cut them out instead of using the orginals.Are others doing the same, or going about it differently----Carroll

[Brian Kent]

I am glueing them to plywood or mdf, as needed, then marked the year and type of wood used to keep track of original and variations for the future.

[Prashun Patel]

I just glued mine to 1/4" hardboard. Probably not the most durable choice.

[Brian Kent]

In this project we need to use a reamer for 1 purpose and a few seconds. I don't mind paying $16 for a 1 purpose and a few seconds kind of tool, but I didn't want to pay shipping just for this.

So I made my own and it works fine.

The job is to very slightly elongate the front of the holes in the seat for the spindles, so that the spindles can move to the exact position to fit the headrest without stressing the spindles.

I had a piece of wood just over 1/2" x 1/2" stock that I had used to test the 1/2" tenon cutter. It had a slope that led into a dowel shape. I ran it a few inches into a bandsaw blade, sanded the whole thing to a point at the same angle as the slope, then epoxied an old jigsaw blade, back side facing out. I placed that in a vice and burnished the edge like you would a scraper to create a burr edge. I tried it on a test hole and it works just fine.

The hole in the last picture is slightly elongated towards the front (left).