Legacy Project: The Dundas Rocking Chair #7: Drilling Corner Blocks and the Beginning of the Finish

An engineer friend once told me that the best angle for the screw through a corner block is 90o from the back (mating) surface, not the front surface of the block. That makes sense to me, but it certainly is easier to predrill and countersink these holes the latter way, especially before the angles are cut. Attempting to drill on that ramp usually results in the bit skating downhill—not a desirable result!

Because joint stresses in a rocker are greater than in a foursquare chair, I wanted the holes the “right” way. Here’s a technique I developed to make that predrilling pretty simple. I clamped the block to the drill press table and dimpled it where the hole goes.

Next a bradpoint bit in a handheld drill makes a little horizontal shelf for the DP bit to land on.

Voila. The pictures say it better and I’m not even at 1000 words on this:

With other projects under way in the shop there was only one place left for the finish process (wipe on poly, MW brand): The office.

I opted to do the rockers first, all the way.

Getting closer!

-- "...in his brain, which is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms." --Shakespeare, "As You Like It"