Woodworker's Journal 2008-32-1, страница 32

Build a Shaker-inspired Woven Rocker

A handful of story sticks, two shop-made jigs and a tweaked lathe are the secrets behind our author's handsome rocker.

By Kerry Pierce

Twenty years ago, I built my first reproduction of a Shaker chair. It was based on a drawing by John Kassay On The Book of Shaker Furniture) of a fairly early New Lebanon rocker. Over the next dozen years or so, I tinkered with the form, giving the arms a more sculpted shape, changing the backrest from slats to a woven panel and introducing new finials and vases. The chair you see here is the current incarnation of that form — one that has remained unchanged for several years because ifs exceptionally comfortable and reasonable to build.

I don't use a measured drawing to produce copies of this chair. Instead, this chair (and all others I build) are represented only by sets of story sticks. In the case of this rocker, one stick represents the back posts with back-rung mortise locations marked on one side of the stick and side-rung mortise locations on the other. Another stick represents the front posts with side-rung mortise locations on one side and front-rung mortise locations on the other. The post sticks also include graphic representations of vase and finial shapes. I create the chair's bandsawn elements — the arms.

rockers and crest rail — from traceable scrap-wood patterns. In addition, each of the rungs is represented by a stick cut to the length of the part, with tenon lengths marked on the ends.

Story sticks are common cabinetry and carpentry tools that help reduce the need for measuring everything ... and that alone prevents lots of building errors.

between centers. While it is possible to buy lathes that can be opened up that far, those models are usually quite expensive. My lathe is an inexpensive Craftsman model equipped to handle only 36" between centers. I pulled the lathe-bed tube from the headstock and had a second mounting foot welded to the headstock end of the tube so I can mount the lathe bed anywhere I

Extra-long Lathe Bed

Begin the project by ripping blanks for turning stock on your band saw (see Material List, page 61).

Although I have jigs that help me band saw square turning blanks into octagons, I have abandoned this practice over the years. It's so much easier to simply turn the square blanks round on the lathe.

In order to build full-size post-and-rung chairs, you must have a lathe that can accommodate at least 44"

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Woodworker's Journal February 2008 32