Hobbit’s Rocking Chair
Medium: Poplar, Plywood, Wood glue, Wood stain
I started this project with a few poplar boards. I used a planer to rip the boards down to the widths I’d be using. To ensure my board was perfectly level I affixed it to a plywood sled for the first couple passes.
From there I roughed out each of the pieces I would need on the band saw or table saw.
Knowing that they would be difficult to round over later, I ran the arm rests through the router table. The rest could wait.
Next I cut dadoes into the the uprights so that the arm rests could slot in snugly. I laid out all the pieces I had and marked where dowels would go in.
As much I would have like to put this together with mortise and tenon joints, I was on a time crunch and working in a tiny prop shop.
With all the pieces lined up and fitting properly I drilled my dowel holes and made a few dry fit tests. Confident in the fit, I glued up the two halves of the chair.
Next I cut out dadoes for the seat of the chair to slot into. I didn’t trust dowels and glue to keep up a seat on their own. Finally I cut low mortises into what would be the back posts. These were 1/2” wide, the perfect size to slot a 1/2” wide piece of ply wood into later.
I cut out a piece of ply wood to serve as the seat of the chair. I cut another shallow mortise near the back, again 1/2” wide.
I cut the tree shaped back out of 1/2” plywood and slotted it into its three mortises. Finally this pile of lumber was starting to look like chair.
With all the pieces coming together I proceeded to drill, dowel, and glue everything in sight.
With an object capable of standing on its own I was able to get started on some detail work. I used a dremel to carve a spiral pattern into the sides of the chair.
To get the exact pattern I wanted in the chair back I printed out my drafting at full scale and lightly glued it to the plywood. This served as a stencil that I was able to easily peel away once I was done with it.
Before permanently affixing the back to the chair I added a few layers of luan to add depth to the motif. I used the printed out stencil again to cut these pieces. Finally I glued them to the back, applied some paint and stain and put the whole chair to gether.
