There’s a reason that the great room isn’t done yet.

I’ve been busy.

Not just on work, but on another little project… one that I’ve really, really enjoyed.

You see, I had a conversation a few months ago with my parents. Somehow the little rocking chair at home came up. It’s a wooden chair that I had as a little boy, and Mom was all excited because she could get it out again for Elin, now that my brother and his family are being transients living with them (they’re moving, waiting on selling their old house).

I mentioned that I had thought about the little rocking chair before, and had hoped to come up with one for Elin for Christmas. They didn’t seem to think that was a bad idea.

What I didn’t tell them (but I figure they figured out on their own, they’re smart people) was exactly how I expected to come up with one.

You see, that old book case in my great room made of 3/4 inch red oak wasn’t just going to disappear. I was going to cut, file, sand, glue, mortise, screw, etc. that stuff into a rocking chair for Elin. And I was going to do it by Thanksgiving so that on Christmas day, the chair would be there for her.

I have some light final sanding and finishing to do, but as of about 5:30 today, the rockers were attached. I built my first piece of furniture. It doesn’t look too bad.

Over the last two weeks I bought a cheap, but reliable table saw & woodworking blade, went to a friends house to use his planer and router, went to another friends house to use their drill press, learned how to cut mortise and tenon joints, mastered the art of dowel joints, and have had a royal blast doing it. My hands are dry, I’ve blown brown snot out of my nose for the last few days, and there’s a smile on my face every time I look at the pile of wood that over the last two days has turned into a small, toddler sized rocking chair in my garage.

There’s a mountain of saw dust, and tools that I need to go clean up, and I need batteries for the camera so I can take pictures and post them.

There’s something about making a Christmas present that beats the heck out of buying it. Especially when all the child rocking chairs that I saw in stores or catalogues and liked were at LEAST $99. That’s as much as my table saw cost.

In raw material, I only had to buy a 3′ x 1.75″ chunk of red oak — for the rockers. I got it at Northwest Lumber which is right down the road from my house. I also had to buy the dowel rods and wood glue that I used for joining. In all, the material that went into the chair cost me less than $30.

The tools ran about $130, but I’ll be using them again very soon…

Pictures later, after I go get cleaned up and have some dinner!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Core Dump, Woodworking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.