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used loose tenons on the seat frame and lower front
stretcher. I cut mortises into the legs and the end grain
of the stretchers using a router with a spiral up-cut
bit in a shop-made mortising jig. The tenons were a snap—I
simply surfaced a piece of oak to the exact thickness
of the mortises (3/8" in this case) and crosscut
it to make all the tenons. While this type of joinery
loses some of the traditional feel and satisfaction of
cutting joints by hand, it sure is fast! Additionally,
I found it easy to cut the angled frame joints using this
method, since the seat is tapered. I angled the legs in
the mortising jig before cutting those mortises. It was
also very |
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Loose
tenon |
easy to ensure all the shoulders fit
flush with the legs as long as the stock was crosscut carefully,
either square or angled. No shoulder paring or undercutting
was necessary.
The final joints, made after everything else was assembled,
were used for the connection of the rockers to the legs. During
the construction of my previous chair, I used integral tenons
off the bottom of the legs, but these were difficult for several
reasons. And while they've survived almost two years now,
I'm not satisfied with the integrity of those joints. When
I was designing my second rocker, I decided to try a completely
different tactic for this joint: wedged 3/4" dowels.
I started by trimming the legs so they fit flush with the
rockers.
After rough cutting the ends of the legs with a jigsaw, I
clamped the chair upside down on my bench and went to work,
holding the rockers up to check my progress. I used a piece
of white chalk to color on each rocker where it would meet
the leg. Then, when I held the rockers in place and rubbed
them around a bit, any high spots on the ends of the legs
were marked with chalk and could be pared with a chisel. I
repeated this process until the ends of the legs were almost
uniformly covered with chalk, indicating they fit nearly flush
with the rockers.
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| Chalking
the legs |
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Chalked
leg |
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