It's rocker update time.
I drilled and screwed all the legs on and I drilled the dowel holes in the top of the front legs. Then onto the arms, the first step is cutting 6 degrees off the bottom at the front. This is the area that will contact the top of the front leg. Then I clamped the arm blank to the chair to find the correct angle for the rear where it contacts the back leg.
After that I cut the angle at the back of the arm blank, I then marked for the dowel location on the based of the front of the arm and drilled the dowel hole. After drilling the hole for the dowel I did a quick mock up, something did shift very slightly but it pulled together ok without too much effort. I then rough cut out the arm and did a small amount of work on the carving of the arms, still a lot to go. Here they are on the chair.
Next stop headrest. I used the same 6 degree jig that I used for the angled cut on the back legs to cut the edges of the headrest. Then I bandsawed the curves and drilled the holes for the spindles. It got a little thinner that it should be at this point on the bottom edge but as it is rounded over anyway this shouldn't have any significant effect. Here is the headrest just sitting on the clamps in the chair.
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Despite the angle of the legs and angle on the headrest being virtually identical, the headrest isn't a perfect fit, there is a very small gap. After investigating this morning I realised that it is because boards 1 and 5 are not perfectly level with each other. Fortunately the headrest is about 1/8" oversize so it'll allow me to use a hand plane to just refine the fit so that I'm not having to pull the joint closed with lots of clamping pressure.
I also have cut the rest of the 7 spindles and then routed all of them. I need to bandsaw the front profile next and then the rest is hand work to shape them. But here they are sitting on the chair.
So the next steps are to refine the fit of the head rest and screw it into place. Then pull everything apart to make some cuts on the back legs and seat to remove the last of the excess material to help with the shaping process. I also need to drill the spindle holes in the seat and finish shaping the arms. Alongside those things I will start shaping the spindles and begin work on the rocker sleds.
I wish I had kept a log to track the hours closely to know at the end how much time it took but for those curious I'm guessing I have somewhere around 50 - 60 hours in it so far. I'm guessing by the time it is finished I'll have over 200 hours in it.