Walnut Rocking Chair #6

Wow. That is a gorgeous rocking chair. Your selection of wood, attention to detail, and craftsmanship are impeccable. Thank you for sharing.

-- My favorite piece is my last one, my best piece is my next one.

Got to love Walnut !!! That seat glue up is excellent and it looks like a very comfortable chair overall ... what type of finish did you apply and how many hours did this one take you to complete ?

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

Awesome chair! That will be one satisfied customer!

-- Fred.... Poconos, PA ---- Chairwright in the making ----

Gorgeous work!

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

I use the Deft Natural Oil. That is becoming more difficult to acquire. I finally found it in the gallon cans from a basket-weaving supplier. My first gallon lasted me 2 years of projects.

The overall project took 6 weeks, probably about 40-50 hours of labor. 1 week was dedicated solely to the finish being applied. With these chairs, unless you build more than one jig, it takes 4 days to glue up the back-braces alone. The seat takes about 6-8 hours to carve and sand by hand.

Working full time on it the chair could be built in a week and then another week to 10 days for the finish to be applied. Though I find that I can work about 2 hours, take a 30 minute rest, work another 2 hours, rarely do I work more than 4 hours in a day, after that I lose the edge and start to get sloppy. Not disciplined enough to spend 8 hours a day on it.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

Beautiful work.

-- Shawn, I ask in order to learn

Excellent work!

-- John -- Racine, WI -- Woodworking..."It's not just a Hobby, it's an Adventure"

Very nicely done! I love the walnut. What size is your chair? I’ve done one so far, in cherry. Now that I’ve got the forms and jigs, I hope to do more. It’s good to hear that you’ve been able to shorten the time to 40-50 hours. You’re right, the plans and advice from Hal Taylor are priceless. The details in his instructions are very thorough.

-- Calgary Bill

Bill,

That is a medium. Medium is the most popular size. I did my first one as a large for myself, did my wife’s as a medium and found I was equally comfortable in either one. I am 6’1” and she is 5’6”. My mother-in-law tried both sizes and wanted a large, she is closer to 5’10”. The remaining 3 that I sold to public customers all wanted medium.

I did the first one step-by-step, meaning I did one step and waited a day until the glue dried before moving on to the next step. Also with the first one I was building all the recommended jigs and fixtures, so one step might take me a day or more to do anyway. After doing one or two I figured out everything that could be done in tandem and streamlined the process. A lot of it depends on how your shop is set up and how much you can do in a day. I also jump around with the order from the list Hal puts in his book.

So far I have done 3 walnuts, one with ash accents in the rockers and head-rest screw plugs (back braces on 2 of the chairs). A cherry, a mahogany and a curly maple round out the list. The curly maple I put walnut accents in the rockers, back braces and head-rest plugs. It came out looking like a piece of chocolate nestled in whipped cream, the customer loved it.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

Beautiful.Wow, very, very nice. Thanks for sharing

-- Allison, Northeastern Ca. Remember, Amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic!

Great work!

Thanks for the post

Callum

-- For wood working podcasts with a twist check out http://thetimberkid.com/

Very Nice… The finish turned out excellent.

Grant

-- www.woodshopdude.com

Awesome job!

-- Les, Wichita, Ks. (I'd rather be covered in saw dust!)

Rich that is truly stunning! You have quite a talent and I absolutely love this type of rocker. This is definitely going on my growing list of projects. I’m adding this to my favorites.

Thanks for posting it.

-- Martin, Kansas

WOW. Nice choice of wood (walnut). Great design and craftsmanship. That rocks. Pun intended.

-- Tim from Iowa City, IA

Rich -
That chair is gorgeous – I just got (ok 6 months ago) the plans from Hal along with the new Back Brace template. Planning on a medium chair in Walnut for my wife. Can you comment on sourcing wood. the book calls for full 8/4 no less than 1 7/8 final. My usual sources are typically 1 3/4.
Thanks for posting
Dave, kansas

-- Its never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

Dave,

The head rest is usually made up of 4 to 6 pieces jointed at the correct angle and glued up. Then you cut the curvature on the band-saw, with the thinner wood you will find it difficult to end up with the correct final thickness of 1 1/8” (going from memory, check the book).

Your seat will suffer, you might get away with the thinner stuff, but you need to carve some parts of the seat down 3/4” from 2” and you won’t have as much material left in the glue joint depending where it lands.

The front legs are made up of 3 pieces of 2” stock glued together then sawn in half, you might have to glue each front leg seperately of 2 pieces of stock, no big deal, more wood used and wasted.

The back legs rely on the 2” thickness at the seat joint and head-rest joint. You also glue on some additional stock at the seat joint, so same with the front leg you might have to glue 1 piece of adder stock to each leg rather than one piece and cutting it in half. The rest of the leg is sawn down to 1 1/8” anyway. At the head-rest joint you will cut your head-rest to fit the assembled chair anyway so being thinner there won’t hurt, just make sure your initial head-rest is a little wider to make up for the difference.

The rockers and back brace strips are cut from pieces 2” x (the width of the strips), so cutting the strips from a thinner stock will mean you need more blanks to get the same number of strips as you would from the 2” stock.

All in all the only real problem would be in the seat and head-rest, I would be very wary about using a thinner wood on the seat. You could plan on a thinner head-rest if necessary, or maybe modify the curvature a little if it does run close. The critical part of the head rest is to have the right angle of curvature and getting it to mate to the back legs once they are glued to the seat.

Just for kicks I ran an UPS estimator, I could send you 8 bd ft of 8/4 walnut, enough to do the seat, but it would run about $80 to pay for the wood and shipping to KS, plus I don’t know where your walnut came from but it could conceivably differ from where my walnut came from. Just a thought. Since you only really need the 2” wood for the seat I would suggest you find an on-line retailer or something for that 8-10 bd ft.

Good luck.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

Rich -
Thanks for the feedback – my struggle has been the thinner material of the local suppliers – so I am expecting to get ~100BF shipped in , which should do 2 chairs and have a some extra material. I haven’t really laid out the templates to see what I will need for lengths and widths once I start sorting through. Obviously I need to be able to match the legs and create a nice book match for the seat. I was in oregon at christmas and there was a supplier of Claro Walnut. I just need to get my cut list together and then I can pick the boards out.
Cheers

-- Its never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

My primary concerns when picking which pieces of wood to use for which part are the seat, arms and headrest, these are always the focal points and the first things people notice. So long as you have a board 6” to 8” wide you will get the back legs matching very closely.

The rockers and back brace matching takes care of itself, and honestly I don’t even worry about matching the rockers. The back braces I put an effort to book match but with an odd number the center one is always a challenge.

Glad you found a supply, yes the 100 bd ft should do two chairs if you plan accordingly.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

Very nice looking chair!

-- - Ray

Rich, excellent job. Thanks for sharing.

-- I'm a wood magician... I can turn fine lumber into firewood before your very eyes! - http://www.woodworkersguide.com

Beautiful work.

-- jeanmarc manosque france

One of the nicest rocking chairs I have seen in a long while.this must be up there with Sam maloof etc thanks for sharing.Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease

Wow, that is insanely beautiful… nice work!

-- As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17) †

Hi Rich,

This is a gorgeous piece of work, and the finish is great.

Lee

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

Beautiful chair and the detail is excellant!

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

I have been looking at Hal’s site and his plans. I’m glad to see that you think they were worth it.
Your chair is stunning, just beautifully made, and a real source of pride.

It is a great feeling isn’t it, to give homage to the wood that took over a 100 years to grow and then waited for a craftsman like you to appreciate the wood ,and make something worthy of it for generations to enjoy, and find comfort in.
Congrats!