Talk to me Maloof...

...what's the next step sir? Small wonder these chairs take so long, the guys dead you know, takes him ages to respond from the other side. In the meantime, I've cleaned up the spindles and dry fitted. thought I'd throw it on the sleds, take a seat and enjoy a beer. There's actually nothing like throwing your exhausted body onto a rocking chair. Especially when it's your first beer in two weeks coming out of a pre-xmas fast. This chair's got me teetering on an emotional tightrope. Can't wait to start blending all those joints, but no doubt Sam's gonna tell me to do a ton more work to prep for the glue-ups.

Staring at Spindles

Spindles are roughed out. Time to make some tea, sip and stare at them, then start cleaning them up and reconciling all aspects to the lowest common denominator.

Before any herculean scraping task, the card scraper must be tuned up...

and then this happened

I had been warned that snapping a spindle was likely. Still a pisser when it happens. Not too much of a short grain situation, just got a little rough with it checking the fit of the tenon in the 'go-block'. Shaping down to a mere 3/8, things get a little touchy. Luckily I had a spare milled, but would have liked to keep that one in the bag for a bit further down the road.

I tuned up my 3/8 tenon cutter & started cranking. Some pics of the nice hollow grind on the curved blade:

More Shaping Parts

Trimming the fat off the goliath crest rail/headrest. Roughing out the 3/8 (top) end of the spindles before attacking it with a rasp at the bench. Really like this Typhoon carbide carving burr on the die grinder.

Shaping individual parts

Each part is rough shaped, with lots more shaping once the chair is glued up. I've cleaned up the seat, taken the grinder to the armrests and headrest, and the General was thrown into production with a little more waste removal from the rear legs (cutting the seat & armrest radii). I am humbled that Maloof made these chairs for a living, back-breaking stuff, feels like I'm in the midst of a rite of passage. It's also time to accept that I'm horribly allergic to black walnut; it's officially on the list of woods-not-to-work-with in 2015.