Maloof Rocker - Final Sanding & Flaw Repair

My poor fingers, I think they will never, ever talk to me again.  My thumb and forefinger were so tender that it was difficult to button my shirt.  I just had to let them rest for a few days after working on the transitions between the rockers and the legs.  Because there are just not too many flat surfaces on this piece that can be machine sanded this means that most of the sanding is done by hand.  

Fortunately for my fingers due to the type of finish I will use on the test piece it does not require any additional sanding.  However, the cherry still has quite a bit of work left.  I started by setting the chair upside down on the work bench and began with the bottom of the rockers working my way from 120 grit sandpaper to 150 and ending up with 220.  I will stop there until just before finishing then go over the whole chair one more time using 320 grit.  If I had gone with a coarser more open grained wood like oak I would probably stop with 220 grit.   However, my experience with cherry is that stopping at 220 grit still allows very fine scratches to show up through the finish.  One of the things that showed up as I moved to the finer grits was the occasional scratch that did not sand out.  The fix is go back to the previous coarser grit, sand that spot then go on to the finer grit, sand and see if it is gone.  If so, you’re good, if not repeat.  While upside down I examined the leg to seat joints and had to back up a bit.  What I thought was fine at the time ends up being not as good as it could be.  I think the experience of sculpting has taught me as I did more of it.  Anyway, I needed to refine the joints with a small file before doing the finish sanding. 

Finished Front Seat to Leg Joint

Rear Leg to Seat Joint - Not Quite Done

 As I was sanding the legs another wrinkle popped up.  The plugs covering up the screws are made out of katalox which is a lot harder than cherry as a matter of fact its Janka hardness is nearly 4 times that of cherry.  In addition I installed the plugs so the exposed part is end grain which is even harder.   The result is when I did the sanding the cherry being a lot softer sanded away quicker than the katalox.  This gave me a slightly raised plug rather than one dead on flush.  The fix is to use to use sandpaper backed by a hard surface to sand smooth.  Not really hard to fix but it did take some time.

With the underside of the chair done I flipped it over and started on the top side of the rockers and those infernal leg to rocker transitions.  From there I worked my way up to the seat and ended up with the top of the seat.  Not many photos here because the only thing more boring than shots of sanding is watching paint dry.  At this point I have only two things to do before applying a finish.  First is to fix the thorn in my side better known as the flaw in the side of the seat and second is to go over the chair with 320 grit sandpaper just before I put the finish on.  Have I mentioned that there is a lot of hand sanding on this project?

At this point I have two chairs nearly ready to finish.  The one made out of cherry and then the test one made out of 2x4 and 2x6 construction lumber.  They are nearly identical with these differences:

1. The construction lumber pieces are thinner at just under 1½” thick while the cherry is a fat 1¾”.
2. The construction lumber rocker has 5 back slats versus the cherry one having 7.  There are two reasons for that.  First is the splay angle for the rear legs on the test chair is less than the cherry resulting is less width at the headrest.  Second, I just did not want to make 7 slats for the both so the construction lumber chair has slightly wider slats but 2 less.
3. The construction lumber chair’s back is a few inches shorter because the lumber I had was not long enough to make the back legs the same length as the cherry.  It’s a test piece remember, and at first all I was going to do was test out the sculpting process for the seat.

Since I was still undecided on how to fix the flaw in the side of the seat I thought I would do some sample fixes and see if one stood out.  I took a leftover piece of cherry and drilled four ¼” holes (roughly the same size as the flaw) in it about the same depth as the flaw.  I then filled them using 4 different methods:

  A.  Super glue and fine cherry sawdust.
  B.  Translucent tan epoxy.
  C.  Same tan epoxy and 50% fine cherry sawdust.
  D.  Black epoxy.

I let everything cure overnight then sanded them flush and worked through the various sandpaper grits to 400.  When that was done I put the sample against the flaw and made an evaluation.  At this point "C" the translucent tan epoxy and 50% fine cherry sawdust looked the best. 

Next was to give the test piece a quick coat of lacquer to see how it looked against the dampened flaw.  I dampened the flaw to simulate the color after the finish is applied.  With these changes the fix that looked the best was "B" the translucent tan epoxy.  Since this epoxy is translucent it lets the structure of the flaw show through albeit softened but provides a smooth surface.  

With the decision made I mixed up a small amount of the epoxy, packed it in the flaw, let it set overnight to harden then carefully filed it down flush with the wood and sanded it up through 800 grit sandpaper. 

Finished Patch of Seat Flaw

With that done I started on the FINAL sanding with 320 sandpaper in preparation for finishing.   To reduce the darkening of end grain when I finish I hit those areas with 400 grit.  One good thing about the finer grits is they don’t sand the skin off my fingers quite so fast and my poor abused finger tips really appreciate that. 

Chair Sanded and Ready to Finish

After the sanding was done I thoroughly cleaned up the shop dusting off all the equipment, sweeping the floor and while I was at it dumping both dust collectors.  Since I will be doing the finishing in the shop I wanted to get as much dust cleaned up as possible.  Last steps are to vacuum the floor, blow any residual dust off the chairs then set the air cleaner to run for 6 hours and call it a day.

Shop all Cleaned Up and Ready for Finishing

Next up, the final step – Finishing