I made my second foray to Homestead Heritage in Waco, Texas to make a Craftsman Rocking Chair in six short days.
The pattern was made about 20 years ago when Mr. Sellers moved to Waco and started teaching for what I understand was a 10-15 year stint. Mr. Sellers and Stan Beckworth designed the chair from either The Craftsman or an early edition of Fine Woodworking according to Stan, who couldn't remember where they got the plans, although the plans were from scratch, adapted from other sources. When I got home, I consulted my saved plans and found that the chair is nearly identical to one published in Woodwork Magazine in December 2004 authored by Paul Sellers.
The School spends about a day with the raw lumber, preparing it (planing it, jointing it, and sawing it to rough size) and gives us a stack of parts. We spent the next six days making those into a rocking chair.
We started on the front posts and measured from the top, mindful that the bottom legs would be cut off and trimmed to the rockers. We laid out a pair of front and side mortises on the sides and backs of those legs. We used the Paul Sellers method, of using a sharp knife mark, making a knife wall, leading with the bevel, bevel down, 1/8" cuts at a 70 degree angle and making a smooth ramp as we go. Then nibble off the ends and continue back the other way until our 1 1/4" depth was reached. Then we cut the front rails and made the arch present in many craftsman type rails, using step cuts and a spokeshave, followed by a card scraper. We then planed and card scraped the posts and made our tenons, using dovetail saws for accuracy, as opposed to a tenon saw, and chipped the tenons once a shoulder cut was made, avoiding sawing through end grain. My sawing technique left much to be desired, and I found getting a starting saw kerf in end grain to be a challenge, so chipping tenons it was. Glued up the front half, moved to the rear.
The rear legs have six mortises for each leg, so lots of chopping. The rear legs have arched rails and two curved back rails holding 1/2"x1/2 slats. The curved rail was formed with a band saw and we chopped the 18 square mortises by hand. Then spokeshave the arches, planed flat surfaces and card scraped the whole thing. Glued up the back half.
The angled tenons were made on a full pattern and we took our measurements from that. The notes on the hand drawn pattern said the angle was 85 degrees but it ended up more like 83 degrees. All layout and marking was done fresh, first thing in the morning after a strong cup of coffee as the angled tenons on the four rails can be confusing. Then knife marks, knife walls and end grain sawing. We could not chip the angled tenons. Then painstakingly fitting all those rails and glued up the two halves.
Once the chair was assembled, we made the seat out of plywood, open cell foam and leather.
We could not fit the arms until the chair was assembled, aligning the arms so they were straight from the front legs, then scribed a shallow dado on the rear leg. Fitting the arm was fussy, because we had to constantly test fit the through tenons, trim, adjust the shoulders, more trimming and so on. The arms were attached with glue on the front and a deep number 8 wood screw on the back, plugged.
The rockers were also fussy, simply getting the saw marks off and marking the shallow angled mortises for the four legs. The final fitting was done with a card scraper held against the the curve of the rocker, then scribing that exact curve on the leg tenons. Sadly, we did not have access to a curved tenon saw for the leg tenon shoulders. (joke). The rockers were attached with glue and screws. The screw holes were plugged.
The whole project took six long days, with a couple of 9 hour days, and one 13 hour day. I still have some sanding to do, I need to chamfer the rear posts and rocker.
I hope Paul Sellers would be proud. I attach the finished project with some additional work to be done before finishing. I also attach some random photos of the work in process
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