One of the projects this spring in the shop is a lacewood rocker. This is a lacewood rocker I made 4 years ago, and currently resides in northern California. We were fortunate to be out there two weeks ago, and I was able to get this picture of the rocker. 
The picture on the right shows the lacewood I was able to get for the current rocker project. Lacewood also sometimes goes by Silky Oak, and there is a wood out there called Leopard Wood that sometimes is confused with Lacewood. I've always purchased mine from a local supplier and have been very satisfied. I like to make sure and purchase all the wood for the given project at the same time since there is a varability in the color of lacewood from shipment to shipment. For a project like a rocker or a chair the width of the material is critical in order to minimize waste. For the seat of the rocker I need 5 pieces 24" in length by 4 1/8" in width the back legs need material a minimum of 8" in width. I was able to find stock that was 9.5" wide which would work grea
t for this project.
The picture on the right shows the lacewood I was able to get for the current rocker project. Lacewood also sometimes goes by Silky Oak, and there is a wood out there called Leopard Wood that sometimes is confused with Lacewood. I've always purchased mine from a local supplier and have been very satisfied. I like to make sure and purchase all the wood for the given project at the same time since there is a varability in the color of lacewood from shipment to shipment. For a project like a rocker or a chair the width of the material is critical in order to minimize waste. For the seat of the rocker I need 5 pieces 24" in length by 4 1/8" in width the back legs need material a minimum of 8" in width. I was able to find stock that was 9.5" wide which would work grea
t for this project. One aspect of this project was to make some slight modifications to the rocker at the clients request. One modification was to increase the height of the back of the rocker, therefore requiring a new template. I keep all sorts of scrap plywood in the shop just for template. For the most part a new template evolves from a previous template as shown in this picture I'm using a previous leg template to make the new leg template.
In order to minimize the waste I like to layout the legs on a piece before I make any cuts, this also gives me an idea of what the grain pattern will be for the legs as well. From there I can start cutting out the pieces for the seat. As I mentioned earlier, the seat is where the rocker really starts, and everything else is milled and fitted to the seat. To make the seat
I use 5 pieces that are 24" x 4.125". However the sides are not cut at 90 deg to the face but at an angle of 3 deg. In effect this "coopers" the seat .
The picture on the left shows the 5 seat parts (left to right) there are other seats stacked below. On the front of the parts I like to mark the direction of the cut so as I rip them on the saw all the angles match up correctly. I use a simple wooden jig to set the saw blade (shown on the right).
When all the parts a ripped to the corresponding angle direction and clamped together the seat profile is shown in the picture above. By cutting the parts this way it helps provide a contour to the seat that will be built upon later in the process. Since the table saw is set up, I'll cut the other four seats at this time as well. In the next installment of the blog I'll talk about what happens next to the seat, also I'll be discussing the next phase of the Kitchen Island as well.
