I’m getting started on the front posts now. Since the rungs joining the posts are at right angles I went ahead and drilled the mortices and roughed in the tenons at the post ends on the bandsaw while the stock was still square. Then I bandsawed the initial curves before switching to drawknife and spokeshave to complete the shaping.
Front Posts
Shaped Front Posts
The high-angle spoke shave I made to help smooth the difficult grain on the recently made birdseye maple and red oak end table also came to the rescue for this rocker (it’s there in the foreground).
With the front post shaped I finished roughing in the tenons by chiseling to the drafted tenon diameter (5/8″) at the ends.
Chiseling Tenon
Trimming Tenon Shoulder
I then rough shaped and tenoned the two front rungs.
Upper and Lower Front Rungs
To dry out those tenons before gluing up the front assembly I wrapped the rungs and posts in aluminum foil while exposing the tenons and baked them in my cook stove at 140 degrees (with the door propped open slightly) for about 3 hours. After the baking I finalized the tenon size with a tenon/plug cutter driven with a hand drill and cleaned up the shoulders with a chisel. This is the still over-sized tenon.
Shouldered Tenon
I used hot hide glue for the glue-up. I like the fact that if the joints ever loosen in the future that they can be reglued without having to clean off the old glue. Hide glue sticks to itself quite well.
Front Assembly Glueup
Until next time!
df
