From: Steve S
Subject: Rocking chair pictures
Mr. Taylor,
I purchased
chair plans from you November 2003, and I just wanted to show you the progress
I've been making. The book and the templates are first class, easy to understand
and make the building and assembly of the chair a very rewarding experience. I
work full time (at woodcraft) so it takes me about one month to complete a
chair. I would have built more but my wife says I should sell one before I start
another. I also built a sitting chair with some extra cherry I had in the shop.
So a happy new year to you and your family and thanks for giving me the
opportunity to build your wonderful rocking chairs.
Steve
From: Orion
To: <
Subject:
Orion's finished rocker
Mr. Taylor
Just a few quick snaps of my finished rocker of your design. It's figured
cherry. The wood was paid for by my brother-in-law and he will be receiving the
chair. I'm about to make another for my mother-in-law but with a few changes of
my own in the attempt to start working on my own rocker style.
I have been working with and building furniture for a number of years both as a
hobby and as a profession. I ran across your web site while working on my own
sculpted rocker design and decided to purchase your plans in the hopes of making
the trial and error period much shorter. When I first cut out your template for
the rockers back leg I was a little dismayed that it was almost exactly the same
as the leg I had designed and made in poplar as my first attempt chair to
butcher and make corrections to. After continuing on with your plans I quickly
found out how much headache your plans saved me. Your plans have given me a
great learning experience in building this type of chair and set me far ahead of
where I would have been otherwise. Though not inexpensive for me they were worth
every penny and I don't think I could have gained a better, more concise and
focused education anywhere else.
Sincerely and with many thanks
Orion
Hal,
Thought you might like to see a couple of shots of the hal
Bought a couple of slabs of curly cherry from Good Hope (my wife loved helping
me get those into the house). Wasn't cheap but well worth it. I'll take some
better photos when done (first coat of oil just went on) but I've been snapping
photos all along the way and these are just a few of them. I had a terrific time
building the chair. Was a fun challenge looking at a couple of raw slabs of wood
and finding the chair inside. Plans were very well done - a bit confusing in
parts but once I got into the construction, became pretty clear what I needed to
do. I've built a Maloof style chair before so I was comfortable with the "rabbit
and dado" joint for the legs. But doing a rocker with the 6 degree angle on back
intimidated me a bit. I loved your solution of gluing an extra block on the back
legs and cutting them at 6 degrees (much cheaper than getting specially ground 6
degree router bits like Maloof has). Your use of laminations for the back rests
and the vertical grain for the headrail are very nice design elements. The back
rests are very comfortable with the flex and give that's built into them.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos. Thanks for making the plans available. While
obviously a good business move for you, it helps the weekend woodworker's like
myself learn new things and conquer new challenges.
Gary,
At 07:23 PM
11/22/2004, you wrote:
Hal, you had
requested that I send you a picture of my completed chair. I started this
project at the behest of my daughter, who wanted me to build her a rocking
chair. I looked long and hard for a rocking chair plan that I was
interested in building. Yours was the one that struck me as the one to
build, although likely the hardest to build. I must say I thoroughly
enjoyed it and your plans were very well done. A few times, I found myself
searching for some detail and ended up calling you twice. Likely my biggest
obstacle was that I only had your pictures on the internet to guide me on what
the finished chair would look like. I had never seen one in person.
The chair in the pictures is a small chair, which is appropriate for my 22
year old daughter. I intend to make a large one for my use, once I get
through all the deferred projects that my wife has accumulated while I was
building this one. I saved all my jigs and fixtures, so it should go a
little quicker. I also found that my sliding table saw (Knapp of Austria)
was a great aid in reproducing angles reliably throughout the project.
Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and wisdom,
Douglas McW
From Denis
To: Hal Taylor
Subject: New Rocking Chair
ID IT!
It took me 150 Hr. [with jigs] but I as successful and happy with the outcome. would have taken twice the time to do it without your laying the ground work. You put a lot of time and thought in your plans, well done. Thank you.
I have always wanted to make something really good out of walnut but never was moved to do it. This is the kind of project I have been waiting for.
Denis Rader
Ps. you can add another chair to the list.
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