Corrected at Last

Don
fantastic posting. your repair looks beautiful
regards
DAN

-- work from your heart and your spirit will live forever

Great Don. I remember you posts and the suggestions that were made. I’m glad they all worked out.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Don, that’s a great job on the chair in the first place, and a great fix in the second place.

I am a big advocate of incorporating fixes for mistakes into the design and you did a wonderful job!

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Well, I missed the earlier discussion so when I first looked at the pictures of the chair I had no idea that the contrasting woods at the intersection weren’t part of the original design. Frankly, as much as I like the whole chair, your repair was my favorite part. I’d say it looks better than “fairly nice.”

-- Tom, Southwest Florida

Great Save Don;

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

It’s a beatiful fix for a beautiful chair, Don!

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

“It looks fairly nice” is quite an understatement – It look great. Beautiful chair Don, really happy that you finally got content with your beautiful rocking chair.

-- Bill - "Suit yourself and let the rest be pleased." http://www.cajunpen.com/

That’s a very elegant fix for a problem. Someday, I will attempt a rocking chair.

-- If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it's free! PJ O'Rourke

You are right mate. It looks great to me.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

GREAT JOB !!! And about time. Now I have an idea on how I can fix my first kitchen chair… the front legs are about 3/4” too short… but maybe I’ll make a rocker out of it.

I knew you’d eventually git ‘er fixed.

-- http://ye-olde-cabinet-shoppe.com/

some say that its not how fast you can make it that counts, its how fast you can fix what you made that counts.

It looks “Maloof”.............ish

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

Great “save”.

I know how you feel when a design you’ve worked so hard on just does not work. It’s a sick feeling & you deserve a lot of praise for working out the problem & making a wonderful looking (and working) correction. Too often I have had to totaly redo a piece that was flawed. Kudos to you for the “repair” that no one but you (and those of us you tell) will ever see. You give me hope!

-- http://www.grandprairiewoodworks.com http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6453794

That’s a beautiful chair, Don. I’m glad that you persevered and made the fix. Is the piece you inserted joined with tenons? Forgive my naivete if it’s obvious to the learned :).

-- Robb

well done!
I like the tip of making a feature of the re-worked section

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Great fix. That’s what sets real artists in wood apart; the ability to find a fix for a problem to the point it looks like there was no problem in the first place. No one will ever know that you didn’t intend it to be just like that.

-- Thos. Angle

Beautiful char. I bet cutting it up was scarry. I can only imagine making that first cut.
Good job, and kudos for redoing it.

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon

Woodworking: the fine art of fixing Boo Boo’s

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Don thats a beautiful rocker, almost a Maloof special. With your touch. Great job. mike

-- Mike. mwurm13@yahoo.com

Way to go, Don. Great fix. It’s neat to see that you worked the problem out.

-- Check out my new website! http://www.blakeweberwoodworking.com

Don, it is beautiful and I really appreciate you sharing, great lesson for all of us. I saw the first post and love this rocker. Way to go!

-- Jim Hallada, Chesterfield, VA

I bet your glad you worked up the nerve to finally tackle that – would have been to easy to just lose the runners altogether. Now It’s an overall great rocking chair, rather than just a great looking one.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

Quote Rob: Is the piece you inserted joined with tenons?

Good question, Rob. I should have elaborated more on the actual technique involved.

One of the realities I was dealing with is that if I attempted to glue an extension of the leg (to make the front leg longer) end-grain to end-grain just doesn’t work. So I made up a ‘sandwich’ of the Beech and Ebony. Each piece was 5mm thick, the grain was reversed, and surface glued (long-grain to long-grain).

This essentially gave me four blocks of sandwiched layers with the Ebony on top. I then carefully worked out the thickness of these blocks based on sitting them on the runners, and the chair on top of these. That was actually the tricky part as the whole assembly was quite unstable. I used some light clamps to hold everything in place, and because I was using a clamp at the bottom of each leg, this didn’t alter the center of gravity.

Once I had the thickness determined, I had to carefully hand contour the bottom surface of the blocks to fit the gentle curve of the runners, and cut the bottom angle of the legs to match the top surface of the Ebony on the blocks. To do the latter, and this took some time, I cut an 80 grit sanding belt into strips and then pulled the strips through the contact points between the legs and blocks with the grit up. With a lot of patience and time, this eventuated in the angle of the bottom of the legs matching that of the top of the blocks.

I then epoxy glued the blocks to the runners and bottom of the legs. The bottom of the legs to the blocks was an end grain-joint to a long-grain joint, not ideal but better that the alternative end-grain to end-grain.

The last step in assuring a secure joint was to drill a 10mm hole up through the bottom of the runners through the blocks and into the legs. In the case of the front legs, this was a 10” deep hole. I then inserted 10mm hardwood dowels coated in epoxy, into the four holes and cut and sanded them flush with the bottom of the runners. This gave me the long-grain to long-grain gluing surface I wanted.

The blocks were then shaped using an Arbotech rotary cutting tool and finished by hand sanding.

-- CanuckDon "I just love small wooden boxes!" http://www.hilsbiblechurch.org/

Boy Don you certainily put a lot of work into fixing the chair.

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

Great job on that rocking chair! Those things are tough. I started one but it got to be a bit overwhelming. William Kappel is a really nice guy. I contacted him for his instructions and they helped me to understand the overall concept. Maybe one day I’ll put in the effort to finish it.

I think your “save” looks wonderful. Gives it a uniquness that is not seen in other chairs.

-- Tom, Farmington Hills MI