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Custom rocking chair and table blog
What is bent lamination?
Bent lamination is the process where multiple strips of wood 1/8'' thick or less are glued together on a form with a caul and clamps holding it down for 24 hours until the glue dries. This accomplishes 3 main goals
- creating the desired curve for the lumbar support
- creating the strength needed
- allowing the back brace to have flexibility.
In this blog entry we will go over the process of creating our bent lamination custom rocking chair back braces.
As you see below each back brace consists of 4 different laminations about 2.2mm thick, we grain match the laminations so make sure you keep everything it order!
We lay out the laminations and begin adding glue in between the layers, we use Tite bond III waterproof with some crazy figure like 4500 psi holding strength. This is one reason anything made from bent lamination is so strong, modern glues are very strong, easy to use and even food safe!
We glue up the back braces in pairs so you should have 2 stacks once all the glue is applied. We stack the back braces making sure no glue is in between separate back braces.
Back braces in form with caul ready for clamping, we use the caul because using the clamps directly on the laminations damages and cups them, not good.
Get some clamps
Start clamping, you should start to see the glue squeeze out, also you must make sure the laminations are all exactly lined up where they should be. The form has some uprights that help keep the laminations where they should be.
Squeeze out!
It takes 13 clamps per back brace.
All clamps tightened, a good amount of glue squeeze out everywhere, perfect! You can notice some old wood hockey sticks that we use as uprights, of course the glue like to stick to them so we have coated them in a glue resistant film. Made in Canada eh!
With the magic of the internet we have a pair of back braces all done. These are built using one layer of Ebony and 3 layers of walnut.
You can see the desired curve that the laminations now hold, we still have a lot of work to do before they can be used in a custom rocking chair, but we are well on our way now.
I've notice some websites that say there's more risk to a flexible back brace breaking over a solid piece, I disagree especially with how our chair is designed. The rocking chairs we build are designed to allow the back brace to flex without putting stress on the back braces it self. We accomplish this buy using a oval shaped hole at the seat location allowing the back brace end to move back and fourth freely when flexed. Also the hole in the bottom of the headrest is double drilled with a angle towards the front, again allowing the top of the back brace to move freely without causing stress. I will post detailing the stress free movement of our flexible bent laminated back braces in our custom rocking chairs.
Thanks again for stopping by, hope you learned something and if you have any suggestions please let us know!
Paul - Joel
Starting 2 new custom wooden rocking chairs
Nice relaxing sunday, time to re-saw some rocking chair back braces and rocker laminations. I had already done the Ebony the other day but need to cut the 3 other laminations for each back brace, for a total of 48 more walnut laminations......... time to crank up the music and settle in. It's actually not that bad we re-saw using a 1'' wide blade that is carbide tipped to leave a very smooth finish with a very small kerf its cuts really straight and goes pretty quick through Walnut, it was the Ebony that really was a harder job.
In this picture you can see 2 seat blanks that have been removed from the clamps ready to be drum sanded to remove any inperfections in the glue up. Also is a stack of back brace lamination all in order for each chair. A few hours is actually spent organizing them, there's no going back once there glued up in the forms.
Here are the back braces laid out and numbered for each rocking chair. Again keeping everything organized is very important, a lot of hard work went into making nice grain matched laminations, no messing it up now!
Arms, Front legs and Headrest blanks for the 2 chairs, tomorrow will be working on these , especially the headrest as it needs to start getting glued up tomorrow, it has about 4 steps to glue it all together. This is because we use a coopered headrest, where we can match the grain to the seat and arms, and get a larger curve which assures more comfort to your body in one of our custom rocking chairs.
Below is a picture of our templates which seem to grow every week. Can't wait to come up with some new designs, and share them with you.
Below is the fist table we've really played with the leg design, it is actually a really neat table, that will look great next to a rocking chair. The top is beautiful built from one board it's matched with a sap line down the middle, pictured to the left.
Torsion box table
Well since we have an order for a very large pedestal table, we decided we needed a larger assembly table, which we can also use as a table for a vacuum bag. So of course we built a torsion box, if you don't know what one is, it is basically a top and bottom sheet with ribs on the inside similar to a airplane wing. What this does is create a VERY strong and VERY flat surface to work on. Now we built this in the garage so we decided to go with plywood to construct it, as there is a high level and fluctuating level of humidity. All our other torsion boxes have been built using mdf.
In this photo we built a 2x6 frame to have to torsion box top rest on.
The bottom and some side are in place, using glue and brad nails.
We start at one end we have a grid spacing of 6'', you can use a rib as a spacer so it's pretty easy to keep everything in line.
Don't be shy on the glue and use brads along the way to hold things together.
Were using Titebond II as it is water resistant again due to the high levels of moisture in the garage. Better to be safe then sorry!
Almost there, so many ribs, so much glue, where's my coffee!
Lunch break........
Almost time for dinner........
Dinner time!
Look at the all done, all that is left is glue and attach the top, we used screws to hold it down then place about 1 tonne of weight for 24 hours.
Forgot to take a picture all finished, sorry it that poor blog etiquette. Oh well I think there will be many pictures in the future.
Bar stool progress
Today was a day of mostly sanding, sanding and even some more sanding. Not nearly as exciting as yesterday which was sanding and more sanding....... but by the end I was able to apply finish to our newest custom rocking chairs which is always so exciting. I think I forget just how beautiful wood can be. Then I apply the finish, and pop there it is........ the wood shows its true colours always a wonderful thing.
Here is the makings of a bar stool i've been working on, the templates are from Scott Morrison but i've change the details, especially the seat joints where we use a joint that offers double the glue surface, by using 1/2'' bits instead of 1/4''.
Picture is the workhorse of the shop the Festool RO150 best sander ever! That's all i'm going to say.
Here is a close up of the Maloof seat joint, this joint is about as strong as you get, especially after adding 2 4'' screws. Not only is it strong but it's very sleek and stylish especially after we sculp, shape, sand, and buff it to perfect fair lines.
The finishing touches, another custom rocking chair done
Today was a day full of sanding, basically wake up sand, eat , sand , sand , eat , sand , sand , sand , finish! and eat some more. Figured i'd go over how we sand a custom rocking chair.
Our process goes like thisGrinder - 120 grit - 150 grit - 220 grit - 320 grit - 400 grit - abralon 500 grit, burnish with wool pad.
Okay when you type it out it does not seem like much work, but let
me tell you it is!! Above 220 we like to hand sand everything, we feel
like the piece has a more organic flowing natural lines so soft to the
touch, that every time you feel the chair it's a surprise.
Every person that happens to come by at this stage gets to experiance the most exciting times durng the chair build, first it's all sanded ready for finish, one more quick seat of course. And second the transformation from bare wood to the grain popping hand rubbed oil finish.
Here is a close up of the hand carved seat on this custom rocking chair that has been burnished with a wool pad after going through the grinding and sanding procedure. It's sure is nice when the chair starts to get to this stage, you kinda do areas of the chair to completion until it all comes together as a wonderful glowing chair even before we put the finish on.
Before and after the first coat of oil / poly finish has been rubbed
down, now we let dry for 2 days, and repeat a total of 6 times, all the
hard work really pays off in the end.
Thanks all for coming by to have a look at our custom rocking chair - design and build blog, as always your feed back is much appreciated so if you have any requests on what were posting on here send us a msg. We will have more detailed pictures of this rocking chair up shortly.
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