custom wooden rocking chair blog - April 2012

Custom wooden rocking chair design & build blog Archive April 2012

Handmade cherry bar stools - Day 2

This is day 2 in the construction of a pair of Cherry Armless Bar Stools

You can follow the progress of these stools - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7

I have the seats roughed out and the leg joints finished on the seat. I've created half of the Maloof joint by creating notches in the seat then routing a rabbit on the top and bottom to create a tongue. Next I have to cut our legs to size then create the dado or groove where the leg attaches to the seat. I created a tongue that is bout 1'' with by 1/2'' deep, so of course we will have to make the dado to correspond to those measurements.

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In the photo I'm cutting out the initial leg shape after tracing the template, after many many hours using a band saw you get pretty good at this! Below you can see how much i've trimmed off the leg. Where the leg attaches to the seat gets left square so we are able to cut our dado on all 3 sides for the front legs and 2 sides for the rear leg.

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Here is a picture of a rear leg that has had the dado created on the table saw. I now have to trim the depth of the dado to fit the seat tongue just right. I use a shoulder plane set to take off paper thin shavings until I have to fit i'm looking for, here is where there is a lot of back and fourth fitting the leg to the seat, but once completed is a beautiful thing and extremely strong. I've had comments when fitting the joints that I don't even have to add glue but of course I do (-:

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Below you can see the fit of the leg dado joint to the seat tongue.

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After the dado is fitted, the corners must be shaped using a router to match the curve left by the rabbit bit, here I use a matched rabbit / round over set to assure a perfect match.

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This picture of the pair of custom cherry armless bar stools shows our progress, it's amazing how we can turn a rough piece of lumber into a beautiful piece of furniture.

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Please stay tuned to the progress on these stools, next we have to do a lot of work to the seat. Shape the sides, back, and front, then onto the grinding and shaping. Hope to have you back soon time for me to make some more sawdust.

Handmade cherry bar stools - Day 1 

The beginnings of another set of stools, this time built out of solid 2'' thick Canadian Black Cherry. All of our cherry, walnut and maple is procured from the local timber supply, cut and dried locally and now being used to build some beautiful Armless Bar Stools. 

You can follow the progress of these stools - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7

First we spend some time choosing the material were going to use, this is a very important step that is sometimes over looked.

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In this next pictures, you can see the 2 seats with the notches in them for the Maloof joint. I've also cut out the blanks for the front and rear legs, and begun the initial shaping.

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Look at the grain! I can't wait to start grinding the seat to shape, thats when the grain really comes to life.

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Here is the Maloof joint designed by Sam Maloof to attach chair legs to a seat. It is a exposed mortis and tenon joint that really locks in the leg to the seat. This type of joinery is about the strongest leg joint i've come across.

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Toronto Art Expo

I was invited to participate in the Toronto Art Expo, I have my a custom rocking chair, bar stools and a cafe table on display in booth #102.

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Here is booth #102 where I have my custom rocking chair and bar stools on display. There is some very interesting art and sculptures here.

cafe table bar stools

This is my Cafe Table with the Contemporary Armless Bar Stool and the Contemporary Bar Stool  built out of Canadian Black Walnut.

art expo custom rocking chair

Here is my custom walnut rocking chair with zebra wood accents on the back of the chair. I really like how it looks with the pictures on the walls with my chair contrasting them.

toronto art expo chair

Canadian Woodworks   -   Custom wooden rocking chairs dining chairs bar stools and tables    -    Hand Made in Acton Ontario Canada
Paul Lemiski    -    info@canadianwoodworks.com