| Blog series by motthunter | updated 333 days ago | 7 parts | 3022 reads | 49 comments total |
Part 1: Day 1 of my "Build a Rocking Chair" camp adventure with Bill Kappel
The beginning of “old guy” summer camp started today and my fine camp counselor is a true gentleman named Bill Kappel. I finally found the perfect thing to do with my extra week of vacation this year. I went to rocking chair camp. For those of you who don’t know of Bill Kappel, he is also known as the rocking chair guy. He makes his own take on the Maloof style rocking chair and does it with style and class. Not only does he make chairs and other amazing wood pieces, but he ...
Part 2: chair day 2
Day 2 started with taking my glued up seat out of the clamps and taking my first shot at carving out the seat with a grinder. I have not done this before so it took me a bit to get the technique down. It will take far longer to perfect it. I was fortunate to have Bill’s undivided attention and patience. He helped me get the angles right until I started to get my seat formed. Had I tried to learn this on my own, I guarantee that I would have wasted dome prime lumber until I got to this ...
Part 3: Here is day 3
Well, day 3 has ended and man am I tired. It was a super productive day. The legs were formed and fitted. The biggest challenge was to mate the legs to the seat. After hours of fiddling and using Bill’s method, all was fit perfectly. What a thrill to see the legs attached and fitting like a glove. After the legs were fit, Bill gave me another lesson in machine carving to form one back leg to the seat. Later we cur out both arms and carved the first to fit. Enjoy the photos ...
Part 4: day 4 is over and the chair is getting bettter and better
Today, we did more sculpting, cut and glued up the laminates for the rocker runners, and created the headrest and the first back slat. The following pictures tell the tale. head rest blank is fit to back legs head rest first cuts sculpting the head rest finished shaping holes drilled for back slats testing first back slat bending the rails marked to sculpt roughly sculpted More tomorrow… only 1 and a half days to go.
Part 5: day 5 and only 1/2 day to go tomorrow
Tomorrow is Saturday and I have a half a day to mount the rails to the chair. Of course I will have to take it all apart, wrap all the pieces and ship them home to do the actual glue up and final assembly. I have so much work left to do that I don’t expect to be done for at least 2 or 3 months since I have to go back to work. Vacation is almost over.. Today I glued the stand offs to the rails, created the dowel ends on all the back slats and started to refine them. I also got mor...
Part 6: last day in Utah..
Well, I am in Salt Lake city and in the morning I fly home. I got on the net here at my hotel so I figured I would post my pice from my last day. I was able to start to fit my rails to the legs and do a bit of sculpting. I still have many hours of work to do when I get home before my chair is a chair, but you can see from the pics how far I got in a week. starting to fit the leg leg is doweled into place and ready for sculpting front is marked back is marked begin front scul...
Part 7: Long overdue chair update
Sorry for the delay. But I have been crazy resetting the shop, installing my new dust collector, and getting my heat straightened out. I had a bit of a tragedy in my chair as you can see in this pic. The seat split. I am trying to figure out the best repair solution so that it is strong and the crack does not continue. Anyhow, the following photos show my rough sculpting and joinery. I still have at least 40 hours of work left as I need to finish the back slats and chair back, ...
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