Maloof Rocker - Final Headrest Shaping

The headrest as installed is a fairly heavy blocky chunk of cherry.  There are a few steps and a lot of material to be removed to transform it to the lighter more graceful piece I need to end up with.  

The bottom of the headrest has an arc that carries on into the leg and that is where I started the integration of the headrest by drawing in the guidelines. 

Headrest and Leg Before any Shaping

With those in place I used the pneumatic grinder and carbide burr to rough in the arc.  Using sanding drums and some hand sanding I ended up with a seamless transition between the headrest and the leg.

Bottom of  Headrest and Leg Transition Done

With that connection done I moved on to the front of the headrest and the leg joint.  All this requires is for the leg to be ground down flush with the headrest. 

Front of Headrest and Leg Prior to Shaping

This is done fairly simply using the angle grinder with the 50 grit sanding disk installed.

Front of Headrest and Legs Shaped

The back of the headrest is not quite so simple.  First is to draw in the guidelines for the reveal that will be ground into the leg.  As shown here the headrest starts out nearly ¾” thicker than the leg and  has to be ground down to the bottom of the reveal via a smooth taper.

Back of Headrest and Leg Before Shaping  (Note top of headrest is at bottom of photo)

Because there is a fair amount of material to remove here I started with the coarse carbide disk then switched to the 50 grit sanding disk.  Once I had established the rough outline I used a round rasp to refine the reveal following that with hand sanding.  With one leg done I duplicated it on the other leg. 

Initial Shaping to Form Leg Reveal

At this point nearly all the headrest is still 1¾” thick, a long, long way from where it needs to be.  The next phase of sculpting falls into two flows. 

First, is to smooth out the initial taper I had done to form the reveal working toward the center of the backrest leaving it the thickest at the center.  Second is to reduce the top of the headrest down to about approximately a ¼” thick.

The starting point for all this is where I left the rounding over of the bottom of the headrest done before installing the slats.  From that existing arc it’s a smooth curve ending up at the ¼” thick top edge.  To help me out I added a handful of reference lines.  Because this sculpting has even more material to remove than the initial taper the coarse carbide disk is an obvious choice to start with.  As with the other sculpting the progression once the major material removal is done is to use 50 grit disk sander, rasps, the pad sander, and lastly hand sanding.  After using the rasp to smooth out the curves I needed to check for high and low spots.  To do this I used a piece of chalk to coat the back.

Headrest with Bulk of Rough Shaping Done

I then lightly filed the surface which left chalk only in the low spots giving me a clear indication of where I still needed to so some work.

Chalked Headrest Showing High and Low Spots

Headrest and Right Leg Sculpting Nearly Done

With the majority of the back shaped and smoothed I could work on the very top corner of the reveal and its transition.  Using the 50 grit grinder, sanding drums, rasps, and hand sanding I created a smooth transition between all the surfaces. Once that transition is done I can finish running the radius I had routed a long time ago on the outside edge of the leg on up to the top.

The last bit of shaping involves softening the inside bottom arc of the headrest/leg.  With the sculpting of the back done and sanding completed to 120 grit here is what the headrest looks like.  A far cry from the big square block it started from.  Nothing like taking $8 worth of 8/4 cherry and turning it into sawdust. 

Headrest to Leg Sculpting Done Except for Sanding

Final process is sanding.  Since the basic woodworking on the chair from the seat up is done I can now go back and sand up to a 99% finished surface.  I need to remove any machine, rasp, file, sanding drum, scratches, humps, bumps or other irregularities starting with 80 grit and ending with 220 grit.   Because of all the curves the vast majority of the sanding is done by hand.  However, rather than do all that sanding at once and completely remove all the skin from my fingers I am going to intersperse it with the work on the rockers.

Next up – Making the Rockers & Sanding