How We Build a Rocking Chair — Arms

We select and mark the rocking chair arms in pairs for matching figure, color, and character.  We develop them to accurate thickness, width, and length — to simple, rectilinear solids that will end up neither simple nor rectilinear.  The accurate thickness, width, and length give us known planes on which to index and guide development of the subsequent complexities.

I built a fixture for cutting the faces of the tenons with two blades in the table saw  (#1) and  (#2).

The shoulders of the tenon are cut at the same saw with a shop-built crosscut table.  One shoulder cut is so deep that it must be finished with a handsaw  (#3).

We "true" the shoulder by paring with a chisel  (#4).

With a pattern we mark the curves to saw  (#5) and cut on the line with the bandsaw  (#6) — the more free-flowing, and faultless the cutting, the less labor the sanding.

We use a carriage and fence to cut the forearm relief  (#7).

At the chair back sander we remove
the saw marks.  At the pump sander
we sculpt and soften the surface  (#8).

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