Rocking chair is coming along

[smorris]

I spent the last several hours working on a rocking chair for our other son, he sure seems like a son to us anyway. It is the one they had in Wood mag a few months ago. He saw that and liked it and since he is buying his first home he asked if I would make that for him as his house warming present.

All the parts are cut and stacked. Today started the assembly of the back. 12 mortise and tenons. Even with my Jet mortiser it was still a work out cutting those in white oak. The real challenge was putting the straight slats into the curved back rails. A lot of measuring and these aging eyes don't read 64ths nearly as well as they should but in the end the dry fit looks pretty good.

Not having worked with white oak before I'm alternately pleased and frustrated. It machines well but trying to feed 10/4 stock through my 3100 is a real exercise even with a new blade. Slow and steady and leave it a hair oversize to plane out the burn marks. I had to switch the bandsaw blade to my resaw blade (3tpi) to be able to cut the curved back rails which were 4" stock.

That is going to be one heavy chair.

[crokett]

A trick for feeding stock that thick is set the blade to half-high, feed the stock then flip end for end and feed it again. Of course this demands a precise setup, else you get a ridge and/or mismatched thickness between the edge of the wood and the middle. Whenever I Did this I would leave the rip just a touch thick and then sand it down to final thickness.

Can you post pics of your work? I would like to see them.

[cabinetman]

Not having worked with white oak before I'm alternately pleased and frustrated. It machines well but trying to feed 10/4 stock through my 3100 is a real exercise even with a new blade. Slow and steady and leave it a hair oversize to plane out the burn marks. I had to switch the bandsaw blade to my resaw blade (3tpi) to be able to cut the curved back rails which were 4" stock.

That is going to be one heavy chair.

If you have a high tooth count blade 50 TPI or more, you may want to use a 32T or maybe a 24T (for a 10"), to do your ripping.
.

[smorris]

I've been out of town for a while so I'm late getting back to this.

I'll get some pictures tonight and post them in the next day or so.

I did pickup a 24 tooth yesterday and will use that in the future for ripping thick stock. I tend to avoid changing blades just because of the hassle factor but I'm thinking it is time to start changing that.

[drumpriest]

I'm lazy also, but if I'm ripping more than about 1" stock, I switch to a ripping blade (24T), even on my 3hp Powermatic. There is just too much material for the size of the gullet with my WWII 40T

[smorris]

I took these last week that show how the back goes together.

This weekend I got to spend 6 hours in the shop so I'll have some pictures of how it looks when the parts get stuck together to make sure everything is working out.