Back at auction during a particularly drab few weeks, nothing really to do and nothing popping up that sparks my interest, determined to buy and start tinkering with something I waited for something no one else wanted as that was my motivation. What people think as crap I will make desirable.
Set of four Chairs came up, See a lot of these that go unwanted, perfect I thought, Long story short four chairs came home with me and I'd paid a mere £10.
As mentioned in the blog description my occupation is a full time dad so occasionally like above, my children do there best to photobomb my pictures!
I still had no plan for these chairs. Then it hit me as my youngest pictured above tried to rock the chairs to his disappointment.
Then upon looking at the wood, the top frame of the chair were laminated pieces so sanding these could cause me a lot of trouble later on finishing.
The chair seat and legs were solid enough but the finish on it was incredibly thin, perhaps lacquered. I didn't want to touch them, nor leave them.
Upon consideration of this I needed a finish to sit on varnish easily and that left me with one choice, Chalk Paint. I purchased a tin of Annie Sloan Parisian Grey and some finishing wax.
I used to be fond on working with chalk paint with furniture though I despise it now, everyone everywhere seems to be doing it which of course is great but the standard people do it and the sheer bulk of crap being pushed through Facebook buy and sell pages is horrendous in my opinion.
Rant over, I then measured the angles of my legs and the widths of the bottoms.
KEY POINT - when making rocking chairs only use chairs with splayed legs, not straight legs. Straight legs will not work.
So the bottom of my chair legs actually get wider as the go up, taking this into account i then took a look at other rocking chairs online and noticed the rocker at the back is much longer then the one at the front.
I cant give the exact measurements used unfortunately as this was done so long ago I never took note back then.
Using a band saw and two long chunks of pine I had stashed in a cupboard i cut my Rockers ready to be attached to the chair.
As you can see i gave them a bit of shape at either end. Then came attaching the legs to the chair, I had to drill in to the rockers and create holes both wide enough and deep enough to get my chair legs attached and crucially at the right angle.
There's no way of getting everything spot on but to do this i turned the chair upside as seen below and marked around the legs before creating a shallow hole at the angles measured before and re-checking before proceeding to drill further.
All had gone surprisingly well which shook me a bit as I'm used to dealing with problems as they crop up not things running smoothly. As shown below the legs are attached to the rockers.
TIP - Instead of trying to get your hole in the rockers perfect to fit the chair legs, sand the sides near the bottom of your chair legs. You don't run the risk of ruining your freshly cut rockers then and its far easier to do too. Add wood glue to your hole before wedging your chair legs in and upside down lightly tap the rockers with a mallet to ensure fit.
I applied the rest of the paint then proceeded to wax the chair using wax brushes. Using lint free cloths then buff the piece to make that Paint shine, it protects the paint of chipping off too and adds a lovely waterproof finish.
I started with four chairs, I kept three as spare chairs, I donated the finished rocking chair to my local library where my kids and i often ventured. Its still there to this day!
Total Cost of Project £38.98
Chairs £10
Wax £4.99
Chalk Paint £22.99 (tons left over)
Cloth £1.00
Pine was free from my cupboard.
No comments:
Post a Comment