ROCKER PROJECT

Patty had 2 old rockers secured on a pallet and stored in the warehouse. The huge rockers were purchased in the mid 80's in Pigeon Forge Tn. Due to years of outdoors use and neglect the chairs were in poor condition. She had always wanted to recondition them but never seemed to find the time.

We pulled the chairs out of their hiding place and cut them off of the pallet. The chairs had a thick coat of reddish paint/stain on them. The rockers had been taken off and were stored under the chairs. Upon inspection the rockers were in terrible condition. All 4 had a large amount of rot in the bottom and proved to be unusable.

My initial thought was to try to repair the rockers with an epoxy filler. After considering all my options, Patty looked up the company that she originally purchased the rockers from. To our surprise, they were still in business. She placed a call to the them and explained the problem. We'll ship 4 rockers out to you as soon as we get them made was their reply.

In the meantime work progressed on the rockers. Stripping the old finish off proved to be a daunting and time consuming task. I initially began by sanding the old finish off but there were too many areas that were impossible to get to. Chemical stripping was the only way.

After several weeks the chairs were back down to bare oak. It was time to fit the new rockers to the chairs. One of the chairs had the bottom of the legs cut flat and there was no way to attach the rockers. It was necessary to insert 1" dowels into the bottom of the legs in order to install the rockers. After that was done the rockers had to be drilled to match the dowel pins on the bottom of the legs.

With the rockers installed and glued we applied 3 coats of honey oak stain. After that dried 5 coats of poly sealer was applied. They turned out, according to Patty, absolutely beautiful! You can decide. We have decided to put the chairs in our new game room INSIDE the house.

The rocker on the left is what both rockers looked like when I started on them. Notice that there are no rockers on the bottom. The chair on the right was the one with the dowels cut off. I stripped this chair with sanding only.

Here you can see the degree of rot on the bottom of the rockers. This one was the worst but all were in like condition.

Below you see stripping well under way. The chairs had many small areas that made it impossible to get to with a sander. Hand sanding was the only way to get to much of the chair.

Even after chemical stripping it was necessary to hand sand the chairs to get all of the old stain and paint off. It total it took me about 3 weeks to get the chairs ready to prime.

NEW ROCKERS

Replacing the rockers proved to be a chore. The new rockers only had one hole drilled for the front leg. The mounting hole for the rear leg needed to be drilled at an angle to match the front leg. Not really knowing what I was doing I turned to my answer man, Frank. He suggested using an angle gauge to measure the angle of the front hole and transfer that to the rear. Yea right, easy for you! Below you see my progress with that.

Using the angle gauge, I chucked the runner up at the proper angle in my drill press. I had to drill deep enough for the dowel to set, but be careful not to drill completely through. Lots of trial and error.

2 of the rockers had the dowels cut off and the legs flattened out. I had to level the bottom of the legs and drill a 1" hole dead center. I then glued and clamped a 1" dowel in place on all four legs.

Clamps in place until the Gorilla glue sets up.

STAINING STAGE

Staining began with a light coat of sealer on both chairs. I let the sealer dry overnight then began with a light coat of water based honey oak stain. Building up slowly I applied a total of 6 coats of stain and allowed the chairs to stand for several days.

FINISHED

Here is what we started with.

Here is what we ended up with. Not too shabby!