I'm self taught or more accurately self teaching. So please don't worry about talking down to me in reply. There are big gaps in my knowledge.
I'm building a small rocking chair for my infant nephew. It's dimensioned based on my 5 year old son and I designed it myself for that reason (couldn't find plans for a rocker of the size I preferred). To give you an idea of the size the chair part more or less fits in a box 14"x14"x24" (LxWxH). I'm almost finished with it but am struggling with joining the arms to the back uprights.
Here is a picture of the dry fit... the arms and rockers are just sitting in place. Built of 1 1/4" thickness flat sawn red oak. You may have to cock your head to one side... not sure how to rotate the pic.
photo.JPG
As you can see, the chair back is at a slight angle to the seat. The arms are designed to be parallel to the seat. Two problems (a) the arm-to-back joint is a difficult to clamp and lay out (for me at least) and (b) I'm concerned that the floating chair seat (will be joined to the frame via figure eights) will place lateral force on the chair-to-back joint because of wood movement.
All of the chair frame is joined using my DowelMax. The angles worked great with shims (chair is splayed slightly with a narrower back and wider front). However, the arm-to-back joint doesn't lend itself to doweling because of the shape - it's about 1.25" square.
I started cutting angled mortises into the back vertical pieces using my router table. I achieved the angle by referencing the straight part of the back (the 'leg' part) on the router table. My 1/2" bit then extended up into the chair back which is sitting off of the table at an angle. Like this:
photo 1.JPG
I lowered the wood onto the spinning bit and only took slight cuts (~1/8"). I entered in the center of the mortise then moved back to a reference line and forward (climb cut) to the other reference line. I did not feel in good control of the work piece during this exercise so I stopped and came here.
I wish I had cut this mortise before I cut the back out of my original dimensioned lumber. I think it would be easier if I were still working with a rectangle.
Is this the right joint selection? Should I try a lap joint or some other method?
I obviously want to do this safely... with stops and featherboards I believe I can go back to using the router table again and limit my exposure. Any advice on that front?
And finally, feel free to critique my design - I realize supporting the arms off of the seat is an issue. I haven't figured out how to resolve that one yet either. Maybe the movement will be insignificant enough to allow me to ignore it?
Thank you for taking the time to read and I appreciate any advice you may have.
Ricky
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