I have begun construction of a sculptured rocker, based on the design of Sam Maloof. This will be a work in progress. I will make updates from time to time as I proceed.The inspiration (and instruction) for this project comes from Woodguy1975. He has offered a class to learn how to make a rocker like this, and the pics that follow document my construction progress. This is not intended to be a comprehensive tutorial, just an overview to help understand some of the major steps involved.
Design & Templates
The first steps involve taking careful body measurements to determine the dimensions for the rocker. The major dimensions (including the size of the seat and the height of the back and arms) are all custom tailored for the individual intended for the chair. Once these dimension are established, the main template is created. This is a process of trial and error, using layout tools and lots of erasers to come up with a design (click thumbnails to see full size).
Mine was not very creative. The idea is to figure out exactly how you want your chair to look overall, and make a master template like this one. Once the master template is made, it can be used to transfer dimensions to make other working templates and finally to shape the stock.
Some of the working templates are shown in the second picture, including the seat template and the front/back leg templates. Creating the seat template requires a series of precise layout lines and measurements. Any mistake here could result in serious problems later.
My chair will be made out of walnut. I used all 8/4 stock, about 80 bd ft total. Two of the pieces had to be at least 7″ wide to make the back leg. All the stock was dimensioned and planed, and some of it was re-sawn to make the laminations for the rockers.
5 responses so far ↓
1 sean de queiroz // Jan 6, 2008 at 2:15 am
i noticed that while the back legs on your rocker are pretty much straight up and down, maloof’s rocker has legs that are substantially splayed at the top crest. do you know how he does this. is the joinery at the seat done at an angle? i’m baffled.
2 Monty // Jan 6, 2008 at 6:47 am
Maloof uses custom router bits to achieve that splayed look on the back legs. I used a simple rabbeting bit to join the back legs to the seat, resulting in a 90˚ angle. The bits like Maloof uses can be found at Woodline. Read more about these bits here.
3 sean de queiroz // Apr 22, 2008 at 9:10 am
i’m wondering what kind of joint you used to join the rockers to the legs. if i’m not mistaken maloof dowels the arms to the leg posts–at least i can’t see a plug on the arm where he would use a screw like on some of his other joints. did you use a dowel to attach the rockers. i was thinking one way to use a screw would be to cover the screw with a final lamination after the rocker is already attached to the chair.
oh, thanks for the info on the maloof router bits. i went ahead and bought them because i really like the splay. it took me quite a while to figure out just how to make that joint with the other tools i have however. the people at woodline couldn’t help–strange to sell a product you don’t know how to use–i even wrote to sam maloof but got no response. i now think that maloof must have a specially ground stacked dado set for making the leg part of the joint. he can’t use hand tools to make the joint like i had to..
thanks
sean de queiroz
4 Monty // Apr 22, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I am using dowels (5/8″) to join the rockers to the legs. I would not want to attempt to plug a screw hole, since any slight irregularity in the finished surface would be detected as a “bumpy” rocking motion. Dowels should be strong enough - much better than a screw threaded into end grain.
5 Essen // Sep 30, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Could you not just cut the mortise in the front face of the back leg on a crossslide tablesaw jig with spacers on one side of the back fence to keep it from moving during the cut. Then for the inside face prop the leg up on a spacer on one side to make the proper 5 degree cut in? I would imagine that everything could be done with power tools, but the spot that mates with the roundover would be very close, but not exact in the seat-side of the joint. epoxy mixed with sawdust could hide this one little flaw. I have actually made this joint before in a different way… without any $75 special bits… but this seems easier than what I did. I made a right and left jig that held a router at an angle to the cutting surface. This is not how maloof does it , because his chairs don’t have that slightly narrower spot and “shelf” under the chair that mine did. The next time I do it, I’ll be adding a 5 degree wedge that terminates it’s point at the bottom of the joint to get rid of that shelf and allow some material for a nice contour on the inside edge of the joint on the topside. This is hard to describe without pictures, but I hope this makes sense and helps someone.
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