After some sixtyfive years of woodworking and art, making everything from toys to tables, clocks to cradles, bookcases to beds, furniture to fixtures, carving to crafting and crating from oil and watercolor painting to decorative paving, I have left metal and glass sculpture for the last. My current project is to build a furnace so I can mold my own original-design bronze components for my grandfather clocks. Next I will use my kiln to fire and cast glass to incorporate into my dreams.

Through all these many years I have found an added pleasure in making rocking chairs. Rockers seem to satisfy my natural inclination to create. I recognize that in our day no one really comes up with anything new, nevertheless we can follow our own instincts while working with inherited form. I started using the generations-old joinery for my rockers, but I guess the many years I spent in aerospace rocket engineering alerted me to the inherent flaw in this type of joinery, with its short fiber and delicate ear. I have since developed my own method for this joinery, which is much stronger and less subject to grain failure. Laboratory test conducted demonstrate a 15% percent increase in strength using my preferred joinery. The same aesthetic silhouette is there while the capacity of the joint is improved and only a skilled woodworker would notice the slight visual difference. I guess some would call me a rocker scientist.

Although I am a self-taught woodworker, I haven't relied fully on my own experience. I also am an avid reader and continually research all the new and old articles I can find to improve on my skills. I am confident the methods used in my woodworking are the products of the best minds and experience from past generations of studio furniture masters. Why else would I offer a lifetime guarantee?

Even though I am past seventy my head is full of ideas for the future. As such, I am well past the age where I am forced to do custom work in general. However, if what you want is compatible with my present ambitions, I will consider the subject.

I live in the most productive part of the world for beautiful walnut woods. I have spent a good deal of time and effort searching for the elusive, figure-grained wood. When I find it, I am motivated to create a new project incorporating nature's wonders, as best as I can, into something beautiful and useful for generations to come. Wood and people are very much alike. No one piece of wood or one person is identical to another, neither are they perfect. That is the beauty of it. Each blemish highlights their character. As the poet says “variety is the spice of life”. Perfection is what I strive for and have only gained a glimpse.

A student blog about his week of rocking chair classes:

Day 1:

The beginning of “old guy” summer camp started today and my fine camp counselor is a true gentleman named Bill Kappel. I finally found the perfect thing to do with my extra week of vacation this year. I went to rocking chair camp.

For those of you who don’t know of Bill Kappel, he is also known as the rocking chair guy. He makes his own take on the Maloof style rocking chair and does it with style and class. Not only does he make chairs and other amazing wood pieces, but he also offers classes ranging from one on one to small groups. He is a great guy, and I feel fortunate to be working with him this week. You can tell he is good since unlike some hacks I know, Bill laughs at the concept of being called a master woodworker. (even though he just might be one)

For me it was a cross country trek since his workshop is a bit more than 2 hours South of Salt Lake City Utah in a place called Ephraim. I am not sure how to pronounce it, but here I am in my hotel room writing this blog entry. I live in Cleveland, Ohio when I am not traveling so Utah is a big change of environment for me.

Enough fluff.. lets talk about the build. Today was day one and we started making the seat. I chose Mesquite lumber for my chair, and I have to say the figure is amazing. Bill has an amazingly organized and intelligent method of building his chairs that can be broken down into specific and orderly steps. The advice he offers at each step helps understand how the choices are made for each step in the process. He follows a similar procedure to the one I have seen on the Maloof DVD I have, but obviously hands on is the way for me to learn it.

I will take pictures and post them as the days go on. I am also making some video recordings of technique so that I can refer to them when I need to make my next chair. Today was day one and I have several to go. I am confident that when I am done, I will be taking home the best looking chair in my house.

I will keep you posted.

Day 2 started with taking my glued up seat out of the clamps and taking my first shot at carving out the seat with a grinder. I have not done this before so it took me a bit to get the technique down. It will take far longer to perfect it.

I was fortunate to have Bill’s undivided attention and patience. He helped me get the angles right until I started to get my seat formed. Had I tried to learn this on my own, I guarantee that I would have wasted dome prime lumber until I got to this point.

This so far has been an extremely interesting and educational experience. I am sure it will continue this way.

Well, day 3 has ended and man am I tired. It was a super productive day.

The legs were formed and fitted. The biggest challenge was to mate the legs to the seat.

After hours of fiddling and using Bill’s method, all was fit perfectly. What a thrill to see the legs attached and fitting like a glove. After the legs were fit, Bill gave me another lesson in machine carving to form one back leg to the seat. Later we cur out both arms and carved the first to fit.

front leg is marked

after band saw cut offs

a close up on the joint

back leg is cut out

creating a flat at an angle to the face. makes legs lean

finished angled surface

cutting the joint

a view of the joint

grinding a joint

leveling and sanding

legs dry fitted and one leg worked

arm blanks were doweled and dry fit

arm being marked

cutting away waste on the band saw

part two of many cuts

carved out arm

leveled and rough sanded arm

done for the day… tomorrow is more

Today, we did more sculpting, cut and glued up the laminates for the rocker runners, and created the headrest and the first back slat. The following pictures tell the tale.

head rest blank is fit to back legs

head rest first cuts

sculpting the head rest

finished shaping

holes drilled for back slats

testing first back slat

bending the rails

marked to sculpt

roughly sculpted

More tomorrow… only 1 and a half days to go.

The biggest challenge here is that I can’t actually finish the whole chair. I will UPS myself the components and when I arrive home do final gluing, shaping, sanding and finishing..

More tomorrow

head rest blank is fit to back legs

head rest first cuts

sculpting the head rest

finished shaping

holes drilled for back slats

testing first back slat

bending the rails

marked to sculpt

roughly sculpted

More tomorrow… only 1 and a half days to go.

 Tomorrow is Saturday and I have a half a day to mount the rails to the chair. Of course I will have to take it all apart, wrap all the pieces and ship them home to do the actual glue up and final assembly. I have so much work left to do that I don’t expect to be done for at least 2 or 3 months since I have to go back to work. Vacation is almost over..

Today I glued the stand offs to the rails, created the dowel ends on all the back slats and started to refine them. I also got more grinding done to form the second arm and copied all the templates and jigs so that I will be able to make another chair after this one is done.

Bill has been such a help and a great teacher. I have taken my woodworking skills to a whole new level on this trip and I am so thankful for this chance. This was an intense week.

Enjoy the following photos.

runner out of the clamps

second view

gluing on the standoffs

second view

I don’t expect to be able to post tomorrows photos for a few days. I have to travel home first. I hope that you enjoyed all of this. I plan to post more as I finish the work in my shop.