At Long Last: The Rocking Chair is Done!

After over a year of planning, preparation, and building (plus the birth of my son and sudden lack of shop time), at long last the Boston Rocker project comes to a close!

A New Family Member and a Completed Changing Table

You may have noticed my absence from the blogosphere these past few months. Well, that sort of thing happens when you get a newborn! Rowan Stewart-Maccarrone, at your service!

In related news, I managed to get his changing table done just-in-time, and it came out beautiful! All of the problems I had initially with warping wood went away after I figured out what to do. Then, it was a matter of cutting out the rest of the pieces and putting it all together.

Making Progress: Soft Wood Not So Bad Afterall

In my last post, I mentioned the various difficulties I was having using alder for my changing table. Well, as it turns out, almost all of this was easily preventable! With a bit of reading and some adjustments to my technique, I was able to overcome these challenges, and have been making great progress on the changing table!

Changing Table Woes

This mortise broke as I was attempting to fit
it to its tenon.

Sometimes things don't work out how you planned them.

Top o' the Rocker to ye!

It's really coming together! I turned the last couple of days into solid shop days and managed to tear through the next few steps on the rocker: the front roll, tapered mortises on the top of the chair, and the back posts and spindles — not to mention the initial mounting of the top crest.

On The Bench: Baby Changing Table

As we get closer to our due date, we're going to start needing more baby furniture. Besides the normal crib-and-dresser-set, we'll need a changing table too. Though we could have bought a dresser with a built-in changing table, we wanted to be able to use our dresser as a normal dresser when our kid is older. So, we opted to buy a normal dresser, and build a removable changing table to put on top.

Bottom Half of the Rocker; Or, How I Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love the Mortise

After what seems like months (it's actually only been one month), the bottom of the chair is cut and dry fit!  The hardest part?  The tapered mortises.  Contrary to how easy I made it out to be in my mortise and tenon post, getting a good tapered mortise and close fitting tenon turned out to be much more difficult than I expected.

Tapered Mortise-and-Tenons: Joints That Get Stronger When Used

Test mortise (left) made with the
reamer (left center). On the right
are two halves of my tenon
template, with a test tenon I turned.

Classic Windsor chairs traditionally use mortise-and-tenon joinery. But, unlike most joinery of this kind, there's a twist. These mortises and tenons are are tapered. The tapering means that as the tenon is forced into the mortise, it gets stronger! This is a great joint to have for a chair, as chairs get beat up probably more than any other kind of furniture. So, that's what I'll be using for my rocking chair.

Designing a Project in 3D: Sketchup

Every project I've done so far started with a design. While some opt to use good ol' paper and a pencil to do their designs, I prefer to use Sketchup to do my designs. This fantastic (and free!) tool is one of the easiest applications I've found for 3D modeling of this caliber. I can easily create my surfaces, shapes, and even joinery and hardware choices to scale.

On The Bench: Classic Boston Rocker

To celebrate the coming of our son, I wanted to make something special, something we could all enjoy, and something that could be passed down. After talking about it with my wife, we came up with the idea: a classic Boston rocker! (Actually, to her credit, it was her idea. She's always full of great ideas!) I was very excited, this would be the perfect project! Something beautiful we can use while he's young, and when he grows up, we can pass it down to him to use with his children.