Sculpted Rocker Seat Shaping

February 7, 201511 yr

I had a nice day last weekend, I was in my shop for most of it, just tooling around and getting reacquainted with my clean shop! So I started back in on my claro walnut rocker. I had some issues with the legs to the seat joint so I spent some time truing up the joint's (different post later tonight) and after wards I still had some considerable shaping to do with my right angle grinder. So I put a 60 grit disk on the grinder and went to town on the rear portion of the seat, I had some dishing out to do that I started last year but got side tracked away from it.

It took me about 15 minutes to get it to where it was evened out, and ground out past the depth gauge holes I drilled in at the beginning of the project. Grinding these seats out is fun, you get to see a shape take shape quickly, but you really have to watch it, don't get over zealous, there is a point of no return that will trash this seat in a millisecond. There is a pucker factor when you get to a certain point. But the end result is rewarding. I sanded the seat out to 80 grit with my new USA ROS Sanding disks and the seat is looking good, more pics later. The seat is really rough right now, we are just starting to create the chiseled lines around the front edge and sides that we'll hold too throughout the project, once established you cannot hit them with anything, they need to stay sharp and crisp.

You can see how lines need to be held once established in this image of the last walnut rocker I built. Those lines are established very early on, and sometimes it's easy to sand through them if you are not alert. Don't ask me how I know!