This is a phenomenal piece of work submitted by Matt in CA. I have heard about those plans and wondered how tricky they would be to use. Matt’s results really encourage me to give it a shot myself. This really is one of the coolest things I have ever seen come from a plan! Check it out:
Your website is great. I very much enjoy the videos, commentary, etc. I’m a finance guy by day and woodworker all other times. I’ve been woodworking for almost 3 years now and can’t get enough of it. It started off with Legos and Lincoln logs at age 3, one semester of woodshop in grade school and then decided to buy my own tools a few years back and am now a proud Festool addict.
I thought I’d pass along photos of a rocking chair I made out of curly and quilted maple from Hal Taylor plans and made some changes as I saw fit. It took me about 90-100 hours to build one chair after making all the necessary jigs and buying all the necessary drill bits, tools, etc. I found it to be a very interesting and fun project to build and frankly thought it would be way over my head.
22 Responses to “Matt’s Sculpted Rocking Chair”
I love the lines of this chair. It’s really nice work! Your choice of wood was great. The wood patterns are really fun!
Matt, very nice chair. I think you did a wonderful job? Does it slide backwards when you sit in it? Sliding backwards is one of the hardest parts of making this chair.
Marc, a long, long time ago we were talking about a
“hip joint”. His first two pictures are a hip joint.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your nice comments. The chair does not slide backwards and rocks very smoothly.
Matt
Beautiful job ! What kind of finish did you use ? I too love your choice of woods.
Thanks….I used 3 coats of Deft Danish Oil. I sanded it down with 500 grit sandpaper and applied each coat with a 4-5 days in between each.
Matt
Matt – fantastic job on this! I really like the back slats and how the grain really pops. It feels like the arm rests are a bit ‘heavy’ to me, but this thing is a beauty, nice work!
-Bryan
A really nice project. Looks like the slats were bent and laminated on a form? Carving the hollow in that hard maple seat must have taken a bit of time and sweat.
DD
The lamination for both the rockers and the back braces was done using a form. The back braces have four pieces of wood laminated and the rockers have, I believe, nine.
Nice chair, looks comfortable too. I was wondering about the laminated wood on the rockers, could you explain the process you used?
Dan
Very nice. They were doing a class at our local Woodcraft to build these chairs. They wanted $600. Included was $200 wood allowance I think.
Matt… great chair. Thanks.
Marc… I’ve been thinking of doing one of these, or a Maloof rocker. I hope you plan to do a video series on this project. Might be a good project for a work along. Like a virtual classroom woodshop.
Matt,
Sam Maloof would be proud.
Jeff
Hours well spent. Nice work.
Beautiful rocking chair. I think I will have to add one to my project list as soon as I get some time. Thank you for sharing.
This is beautiful. There is no way I could even attempt something like this.
Very nice work! The wood choices are what really set this rocker apart from other!
Great job on the rocker. I never liked any rocker that I have seen or used because the always seemed to be to “country” looking, but your rocker has a nice clean, sleek look to it.
Man is that nice, I love how the lines all flow together and the little accents that are incorperated into the design. I agree not country looking at all, looks very very classy. Are you planning on building more chairs or is this one of those things that you just have to get under your belt?? I want to build one somewhat like yours down the road, partially for pride and partially just to say I have done it.
Nate
Hey Matt, awesome chair. I can’t believe it was based on a plan. Great job and look forward to your future projects.
Matt,
Very Nice Chair!!!! Do you have a direct link to the plans that you used for it?
Thanks!
John
Thanks for your nice comments. The website is http://www.haltaylor.com
Matt
WOW