Maloof Rocker - Sculpting the Arms

To me one of the most appealing items in the chair are the arms.  The way they flow from the back legs into the very organic shaped armrest and then onto the front legs.  No straight lines here!  I had laid out my reference lines for the arms when I did the rear legs so there was not really anything keeping me from starting.

Layout Lines on Arms

Chair Clamped to Lathe

Because there is a lot of material to remove first is to take the sanding disk off the 4.5” angle grinder and put the coarse carbide wheel back on it.  I set the chair on the floor, clamped it to the lathe to help keep it from moving around and gingerly started making freehand passes. 

Process is to work my way grinding down into the arm toward the reference lines along the long axis working from the outside in. 

Once the edges are ground down close to where they will end up I started to remove material from the center to marry the edge lines.  When I get to a rough shape I switch the from the coarse carbide wheel to the sanding disk to smooth out the surface and refine the shape.  After going as far as I can with the disk sander I move to the rasp and hand tools.  The idea is to get to a 90% finished shape then move on to another area.  Once all the adjoining surfaces are at the 90% level I will work to tie all of them together.

Left Arm Shaping Progression

Top of Left Arm Rough Shaping Completed

After both arm tops are 90% done I flip the chair over so I can work on the underside.  Here where the front leg joins the arm I had one more layout line to add.  It is a guide for setting the arc or fillet between the arm and the leg.  The easy way to draw a concentric circle around the leg is to take a washer and using the center hole as a guide rotate the pencil around the leg.

Adding Layout Lint to Underside of Arm

I follow the same sequence for the underside of the arm as the top except it is harder to do than the top.  With the top I have free access from all directions.  The underside has the front and back leg to work around.  Then you have the inside edge which you can’t really see because the seat is in the way and lastly you need to keep track of where the back side of the grinder is spinning.  You do not want to be working on making a cut while the grinder back end is happily chewing on one of the legs.  I know that can happen from experience on the test piece.   It may not be much more complex a shape than the top but access and the ability to see what you are doing is certainly more restricted. 

Underside of Arm Shaping in Progress

Because of the tighter curves and more restricted access I could not get to the same level of finish as I could on the top which means that I have to spend more time refining the shape with the hand tools. 

Using a rat tail and flat rasp along with other files, the pad sander loaded with 80 grit paper and finally ending up hand sanding I get my final shape.  It’s a long way from being ready to apply a finish but the form and shape are there.

Two small areas are left to be done.  First, is the inside rounded edge on the top of the arm which flows up the rear leg and transitions into a hard edge.  Sequence here is to layout edges of radius, grind with carbide burr and refine the rounded edge with rasp and sand paper.  Second is to complete the inside edge of the rear leg where it runs between the seat and the arm.  Same sequence as above; layout edges, grind, refine with rasp and sand. 

Underside of Arms with 90% of Shaping Done

From here it is more hand work taking all the different surfaces of the arm that are now at 90% cleaning up any odd bits and tying them all together.  Lots of moving the chair around looking at it from different angles and feeling the surfaces, no humps, bumps, dips or irregularities allowed.   There is one other thing, both arms need to look and more importantly feel identical when sitting in the chair.  Although I am left handed I'm not building a left handed chair.

On a side note, these last two steps involving the sculpting of the leg to seat joints and the arms were really time consuming.  I spent the better part of 3 weeks taking them from the blocky rough shapes to where they are now.  While the overall shapes are 99% done the surfaces are nowhere near smooth enough to apply a finish.  I just know there is a whole lot more sanding in my future.

Next up – Plan Problem & Finishing the Slats