Maloof Style Chair - Finished!!

[Prashun Patel]

This 3-legged chair is designed by Scott Morrison. The plans are on his website.

I recommend this chair as a 'starter' project for anyone intimidated by Maloof style rockers. It's a great intro to the joinery and sculpting, but it's less complicated.

I'm making a pair. One will be walnut, the other curly maple. The pieces are all laminated from 4/4 stock, although the plans call for 8/4. It has made selecting grain pretty tricky.

I'm in the middle of shaping the legs. I bandsawed them to rough shape, then used a block plane to smooth the flat and convex sides. For the concave side, I used a rasp to get a smooth sfc. Next, I switched to my $10 spokeshave and Lee Valley contour plane. They are magical. I scribed a line down the center of each side, and rounded over to the line. Each leg takes about 20 minutes. No dust.

[Jim Becker]

That looks like a fun project, Prashun...I'm looking forward to your progress and finished chairs!

[gary Zimmel]

Nice little build you have going on Prashun. Keep us up to date with the progress.

[Jason Tuinstra]

I think I like his tea party chair the best. Can't wait to see how it works out for you. Have fun!

[Adam Cormier]

Looks good so far.

[Brian Kent]

Mmmmm. Awesome.

[Brian Frances]

Prashun,
This looks like a fun little project that's not going to take up too much time, so I guess you can say it's "doable". Keep us posted on your progress. I'm thinking of picking up those plans also!

[Prashun Patel]

I did some work on the seats.

The Maloof joint is very straight forward to make. A dado is cut into the edges of the seat where the legs will mate. Then a rabbeting bit is used to cut the top and bottoms. Next, a matching dado is cut into each leg. Last, the legs are rounded over to match the radius of the rabbet made in the seat.

I prefer to cut my dados with a regular crosscutting blade. It takes longer, but allows me to sneak up on the fit and doesn't require a lot of math. Also I have a Sawstop which is a pain to swap a dado stack into... A shoulder or rabbet plane makes quick work of flattening/tuning the joint.

The 'trick' to getting this to fit is to use special "Maloof joint" or matched bits. However, Whiteside makes a Maloof straight bit that will cut a radius that is exactly 1/2" and will match any 'standard' 1/2" roundover bit. This makes the set considerably cheaper than before.

I fit my last couple joints by hand. Very time consuming. The router bits are definitely the way to go.

I did the shaping on the seat with a 4" angle grinder and a carbide grinding wheel. I prefer the 4" Hitachi. It's cheap, and being slightly underpowered vis-a-vis the 4 1/2" ones, it gives a little more control and maneuverability, and is lighter, so causes less fatigue.

My seat blanks are laminated 4/4, so I was careful not to grind down as far as Scott does in his, lest I tear thru the top layer.

I was careful on my walnut seat to select matching grain this time (Thanks for the constructive criticism last time, Richard Dragin).

[glenn bradley]

What a fun project. I really enjoy the hand shaping and blending of the curves.

[Joseph D'Orazio]

subscribed

[Bobby O'Neal]

This ought to be fun.

[Prashun Patel]

I glued in the front legs and front stretcher of the Walnut chair today. This was time-consuming. Since the stretcher was shaped by hand, I had a devil of a time getting the ends concentric. I used a tapered tenon cutter (Lee Valley) but still had a lot of tuning with sandpaper and a Microplane.

Scott does his glue up all three legs and both stretchers at once. Too rich for my blood.

I'm using Titebond II for all parts. I think on my next chair I might try Hide glue. It apparently binds slower which will save me some sweat when trying to get multiple joints to come together simultaneously.

I sanded the stretcher to 220 before assembly. I like to sand quickly up thru the grits and then come back down and fix the trouble spots.

[Darren Brown]

Prashun,

Looks great so far. I'm almost tempted to make one of these myself. One tip I have for you is next time you'll want to shape your legs closer to the seat before gluing them on. They are easier to shape when you can just clamp them in a vise. Now you have to work around the seat as you blend the legs in. Sam Maloof used a large plank (lets say a 2x12) covered with carpet, then clamped to his bench for shaping after the legs where glued on. I've done this and it works well. The hand shaping is the a hardest part but it looks like you've got it down. Keep up the good work.

Best,

Darren

[Prashun Patel]

Darren-
Yeah, I should have done more shaping before glueing up. I'll do that on the 3rd leg.

[Brian Kent]

Prashun. Great progress. You inspire me. Where does the other stretcher go?

Brian