Maloof Rocker - The Legs

Now that the seat is pretty well shaped I moved on to the legs.  The front legs came first.  For some reason the dados needed to be cut just slightly deeper.  They should have fit but with such a wide cut there is a tendency for the piece to sometimes ride up a bit giving you a slightly shallow cut.  The difference was only a couple hundredths of an inch but it was enough to keep the leg from fitting.  The fix is pretty easy using a narrow plane to shave them down a bit. 

After making that adjustment a problem in the matching the curved part of the joint needed help.  I used the pencil trick to find the high spots and worked them down a little at a time until the joint fit good and tight.

Here is the front leg template, the layout and one rough cut on the bandsaw.

Next was to mount the rough cut blank on the lathe and start turning each end to a smooth taper.  This shows one end done and ready to move on to the other end.

The front legs are attached to the rockers and arms using ½” dowels.  This requires that I drill a hole 2” deep centered on each end of the leg and in-line with the leg axis.  After some thought the best way seemed to be using the lathe.  I mounted the leg in a 3 jaw chuck, the drill bit in the tailstock and used the hand wheel to run the bit in the required 2”.

Unfortunately, when I mounted the tapered leg in the 3 jaw chuck the steel jaws dented the already turned part of the leg.

Because the wood fibers were only slightly dented and not cut the solution is to use a hot iron and a wet cloth to steam the fibers.

This causes them to swell back up to their original shape.  Once dry a quick sanding to remove the raised grain and all is well.  The front legs are now ready to glue onto the seat.

All that remains is a little work on the rear legs.  I had to cut away some of the leg’s inside face to reduce the amount of material removal during the sculpting phase.  Some of the edges then get a roundover routed on them.  To make sure I routed where I needed to and not where I didn’t I marked up the pieces.  Here are my markups after routing.  As I have said before I make notes to myself all over the pieces.  More than once it has saved my bacon.

The last bit of work is to drill a ½” hole in the bottom of the rear legs for the dowel which will be used to make the connection to the rocker.  One went just fine, straight and in-line with the center of the rear leg axis.  However, the other leg did not go quite as well.   For some reason the drill drifted slightly (less than 1/8”) off the leg axis.  Only problem that causes is when I drill the hole in the rocker I will have to match that angle.  With that, I have the legs and seat ready to glue together.

Next up - Glue-up and Arms