Maloof Rocker - Seat Mockup Part 5, Bandsaw & Hollowing Seat

After the seat blank glue-up had set all night I removed the clamps and used the bandsaw to cut it to shape. 

Cut Out Seat Blank

Now came the time to start scooping out the contoured section of the seat.

This is my first foray on this piece out of dimensioned precise work and into the sculptural side of the project.  My only drawn layout is the outer edge of the scooped out seat and its center line.  The rest is by eye and touch.  I started with the coarse carbide disk mounted on the 4½” angle grinder.   For a bit of practice I cut a starting swath parallel to the finished edge just to get a feel for how the tool works.  After a couple of passes and with a bit of apprehension I went ahead and outlined the area to be scooped out.

Carbide Grinder

Outline of  Scooped Part of Seat

After the outline was done I could start on the bulk removal of the material and roughing the seat recess out.  Surprisingly the coarse carbide disk/grinder combo was easy to control.  The teeth are very aggressive and the disk turns at such a high rpm only a little pressure is required to remove material.   I knew that there would be a lot of shavings generated but the tool acts like a garden hose spraying shavings all over the shop!

Finished With Coarse Carbide Grinder

Once I had the seat roughed out and taken as far as I could with the coarse disk I switched to a regular 50 grit sanding disk mounted on the same angle grinder.  Once again the tool required little pressure to remove material, smooth and refine the seat shape.  It was with this tool I started to round over the front edge of the seat and finish up the majority of the shaping. 

Results From 50 Grit Disk

The next step is to move to orbital and pad sanders to remove any remaining high spots and smooth the surfaces out.  The emphasis here is not on material removal but refinement of the shape and smoothing.  Final pass is made using 120 grit paper on the pad sander along with some hand sanding.  The hand sanding is needed to ease the transitions around the inside edge.  Since this is a practice piece I stopped with the 120 grit.  For the actual seat I will probably continue on through 220 grit.  Once the face was done I flipped the seat over and cleaned up the bottom easing and smoothing the joints where the 5 seat pieces are joined.  Last step is to clean up the bandsawn outside cut edges using the disk, drum and oscillating sander.  Really, the last step is to clean up the piles of sawdust this step generates everywhere in the shop.  

Next Up - Seat Mockup Part 6, Add Legs & a Problem