HOW MY ROCKING CHAIRS ARE MADE:

It takes two to three weeks to build one of my chairs. There are a number of ways that this time could be reduced some through mass production techniques, but the chair would suffer. Each chair I make is a unique work of art that begins with the customer and a discussion around color, size, use, available woods and where the finished chair will reside. Once we have determined the type and color of wood or woods that I need for a chair I set out to find just the right matched boards. Sometimes this is relatively simple and requires a quick phone call to one of my wood dealers in PA or VA. Other times it may just be a drive to Miami or Georgia. For really special woods it often requires that I fly out of state to look at wood in person. Some of the woods I use are very rare and expensive and to minimize waste and maximize quality it is often important for me to touch and see the wood. I recently completed three chairs made out of Amboyna Burl. The wood for this chair was custom cut in Laos, then purchased and milled by me in CA, then vacuum kiln dried in PA and finally shipped to my shop in Florida before I made my first cut.

Once the wood is acquired I plane it here in my shop in Sarasota and begin the process of laying out how the various boards will work together to achieve the most dramatic effects possible. Many of the components are mirrors of their opposite (one rear leg to another or a seat from side to side). Getting the lumber, laying out the basic components and planing all the wood to thickness often takes several days. Many components are then rough sawn on the band saw and I begin the laminate process that I use to create the matching rockers and back braces. During this process I will saw a particularly attractive board into dozens of small laminates that I then glue up in forms for the back braces and rockers. This enables me to obtain a perfect match on these components. The seat is then glued up, sometimes two boards, sometimes 4, sometimes 6 or 7 pieces if accent woods are being employed. Then the real work of shaping the legs, sculpting the seat, coopering the head rest pieces and cutting the marvelous rounded, mortise and tenon joints that make these chairs so distinctive, begins. Over the next few days the chair gradually takes shape and expresses its own individual personality. I often name them as they develop. Sometimes a grain pattern will demand lots of flats and chamfers. Another might insist on nothing but rounds. In the end each chair is distinctively unique although based on the same original design.

After almost two weeks of work I begin the finishing process and each chair is finished to a level of smoothness seldom seen or felt in our fast paced production world. During this final step most chairs receive several coats of hand rubbed Danish oil.