Ebon Oak Rocker
This Charles Limbert-inspired rocking chair will become your favorite seat in the house.
This chair is inspired by the Ebon rocker, manufactured by Charles Limbert. It features great techniques that you can apply to other projects.
Rocking chairs are great things to have around the house. There’s just something relaxing about a rocker, especially if it has the right proportions to be both comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. Add some soft chenille cushions, and this rocker makes a pretty nice spot to read a book or chat with a friend. This rocker is modeled after a Charles Limbert design circa 1914. In 1915 a new catalog debuted a line of “Ebon-oak” furniture, which added dark wood inlays to existing Limbert Furniture Company’s offerings, as well as introduced some new inlaid pieces. Interestingly, this rocker was not included in the company’s printed catalog.
One standout feature of this chair is the single corbel found under each armrest. Limbert was known to incorporate single corbels in some of his furniture pieces, at a time when traditional designers only used corbels in pairs. The design and comfort of this chair places it near the top of my ‘favorites list,’ and not just the Limbert designs, but among all noted Arts and Crafts style designers. You’d know this chair if you saw it; the problem is you’ll never see one. So rare is this particular chair, that I’ve never seen a color photograph of one, let alone one for sale at an auction house or antique dealer. So, my friends, you’ll have to build it.
Start with Rockers
The rockers are glued laminations, so you’ll need a bending form. I made a universal roc3ker bending form from layers of /4" MDF. It’s one I’ve used in the past and seems to work well for rocking chairs big and small. The bending form has a radius of 42" and can be cut with a router trammel. The form is 40" long, and bulges 5 1/16" over that span. Make one layer of the form starting with a piece of MDF 40" long x 8" wide. Then use that as a pattern to make a total of six layers.
Screw three layers together for the rocker form and set the other three layers aside.
Cut strips of white oak about
3/16" thick at the band saw for the laminations. The oak donor board should be about 2 1/4" wide and 36" long. Plane the strips to a uniform thickness of 1/8". The rockers will be trimmed to 32 1/4" long and 2" wide once they come out of the form.
If you’ve never bent a pair of rockers before, it’s not a difficult skill to learn. However, there are a couple of things to keep in mind for the best results. A piece of 1/4" plywood makes a nice clamping caul on top of the final thin strip of oak. Attach a scrap of wood to both ends of the caul to keep the clamps from slipping off. Along the same lines, a deep notch under each end of the bending form helps the clamps stay put. Cover the bending form and flexible caul with clear packing tape to keep the glue from sticking. Apply glue with a narrow, smooth paint roller to one face of each laminate, and start building a stack. Position the stack on the bending form, making sure it’s registered against the vertical fence boards. Start clamping at the center and work your way toward each end. Use plenty of clamps for a nearly invisible glue line.
An interesting discussion is sometimes broached regarding what glue to use for bent laminations. Some woodworkers argue that epoxy or specialty glue is required. Concerns of springback, or ‘creep’ over time are often cited as the main concerns. To test these concerns, I used standard yellow PVA glue and paid particular attention to the amount of springback. With eight layers of 1/8" thick plies I noticed very minimal springback. I also have a rocker that I built months ago, using the same glue. I compared the loose rockers, new vs. old, and the curves were virtually identical. While specialty glues might be required in extreme situations, with this bending radius, they aren’t necessary.
Make the Legs
Rummage through your hardwood pile and select kiln-dried stock for the chair frame components. Layout the shape of the rear legs on a piece of 8/4 that’s 5 1/2" wide and 39" long. The leg blanks will finish at 1 3/4" thick. Cut the legs out following your layout lines and smooth the sawn surfaces.
Add veneers to two sides of the front legs for pleasing quartersawn figure on all sides. Plan the width of your stock so the legs finish at 1 3/4" square. Alternately, you could select rift sawn stock for the front legs and skip the veneering step altogether.
Square Inlays
Now layout the location of the square inlay design on the front and rear legs. Start by routing the 1/4" wide x 1/4" deep groove with a router and edge guide. A 1/4" spiral downcut bit is an ideal choice for the job. Once the groove is cut, size a strip of walnut or other dark hardwood to fit and glue it in place. Plane the inlay strip flush with the surface of the leg to prepare for the next step.
If you have a hollow chisel mortiser, the 3/4" square shapes are pretty easy to cut out. If not, you can always drill out most of
the waste, and chisel the recesses square. The final step of the inlay process is to cut pieces of walnut to fill the square recesses. Make sure to cut the square plugs so they’ll show face grain (not end grain) for a consistent look. I clamped a block of wood to the rip fence on my table saw and cut the plugs with a crosscut sled. Adjust the rip fence until you’re consistently cutting 3/4" plugs without further adjustment. The block clamped to the rip fence makes sure the small offcut won’t be trapped between the blade and the fence. Back-bevel the walnut plugs with a sanding block for a gap-free fit, and glue them in place.
Move On to Mortises
The leg mortises are all straight, with no angles to deal with. Each rear leg receives four mortises, and each front leg receives only two.
The mortises that will accept the seat rails are all 4 1/2" long x 1/2" wide and 11/8" deep. Whenever I cut intersecting mortises with a mortising machine, I set the depth of cut a little on the shallow side. Then I can come back and clean up the inside corner with a sharp chisel. This prevents cutting too far into the leg and weakening the joint.
The mortises that receive the curved backrest rails are a little smaller in size. They are all 2 1/2" long x 3/8" wide, and 11/8" deep.
Four Simple Seat Rail Parts are Next
How refreshing to build a chair without any angled seat rail joinery! The design of this rocking chair calls for straight, square joinery where the seat rails meet the legs. That makes your job of cutting the tenons a little bit easier. Prepare 5" wide x 7/8" thick boards for the seat rails and cut them to length. The front and rear seat rails are cut to 24 1/4" long and the side seat rails measure 22 1/4" long. Form 1 1/8" long tenons on the ends of the seat rails, until they fit snugly into their respective mortises.
Only a few steps remain to complete the seat rail components. Mark curves that narrow the rails to 3 3/4" wide at the apex. I suppose you could make a router template if you had more than one chair to make, but I simply cut the curve at the band saw. Spend a few moments smoothing the saw marks and fairing the curves before moving onto the next step.
Build the Backrest
The backrest rails require a couple more sticks of 8/4 stock, but they only need to be 24 1/4" long. Form offset tenons with a dado blade and miter gauge at the table saw. Once the tenons fit as they should, you can cut the curved backrest rails to shape at the band saw. Try to maximize the curve with the stock you have available and aim for a finished rail thickness of 3/4".
Cut a series of 2 1/2" long x 5/16" wide mortises in the backrest rails. Dry assemble the chair to take a measurement for the slat length. Once you’ve confirmed the 17 1/2"
shoulder-to-shoulder dimensions, set out to make the backrest slat components. They’re 18 1/2" long overall, and 3" wide x 1/2" thick.
Cut 1/2" long tenons on the ends of all four slat with your method of choice. Fine-tune the tenons with a shoulder plane or sanding block until the parts come together without too much trouble.
Get Steamed
At this point you’re ready to make the steam-bent armrests. Stock selection for parts that will be steam bent seems to be a critical point. I always use air-dried lumber for steam bending, rather than my usual kiln-dried selection. Air-dried lumber bends more easily, holds its shape better, and is less likely to suffer internal cracking. So, I selected some highly figured, air-dried 5/4 lumber, and dress it to a finished thickness of 7/8". The armrest blanks need to be about 4 3/4" wide x 27" long for now.
Insert an armrest in a pre-heated steam box for an hour to soften the lignin. You’ll use the same bending form as you did for the rockers, although you’ll need to add three more layers of MDF to make it wide enough. Only the back 20" of the armrest will be set over the form, while the front 7" of the armrest will hang unsupported. Have a piece of 1/4" plywood ready to cover the armrest and protect it from being dented by the clamps. Apply enough clamps to gently approximate the armrest to the curve of the bending form. Don’t overdo it with the clamping pressure here… use just enough force to close the gap. Leave the armrest clamped in the form for 24 hours. Repeat the exact process with the other armrest, so the curves will match.
Fitting the Armrests
Once the curve is set, trim the parts to 4 1/2" wide, and cut a single mortise at the front of each armrest. It’s always a good idea to transfer the mortise location to the underside of the armrest and score the perimeter with a chisel. That way you’ll prevent chipout as you cut the through mortise. Once these mor
tises are established, you can cut a tenon at the top of each front leg to fit. When cutting through tenons, I like to test fit on the outside of the mortise. Take multiple passes to gradually sneak up on a snug-fitting joint. Once the tenon eases into the outside of the mortise, make no more adjustments to the tenon. Any additional finesse work will be done to the mortise wall as needed. Now dry assemble the chair again and set the armrest in position alongside the tenon. The tenon shoulder on the front arm provides a convenient perch, as you mark a line where the rear leg intersects the armrest. Calculate how big the notch needs to be to accommodate the rear legs and complete the cuts with a band saw or dovetail saw. When test fitting the armrest, pencil a reference line on the through tenon where it projects through the armrest. Then form the pyramid-shaped detail on the tenons with an oscillating belt sander or block plane.
This is the most enjoyable part about chair building, when you can stand back and see the results of your hard work. Once the armrests are fitted, the chair really starts to take shape. Now drill a hole in the back of the armrests and use a 5/8" dowel center to locate the receiving hole in the back legs. Finally, shape the armrests as indicated in the detail rendering to lighten the look.