This chair has rails turned on a lathe to frame the back.
Rocking chairs have a history hundreds of years old. Rocking chairs appear in the 18th century in both England and the United States. These chairs were originally used as garden chairs, but over time evolved to be a regular piece of indoor furniture. American myth often credits Ben Franklin with the creation of the rocking chair, but these chairs were in use in England before their rise to popularity in America. Does this Spark an idea?
Seats
The seat of a rocking chair is very important to the comfort of the final product. A rocking chair should be comfortable when sitting in it even without a cushion on the seat. Typically, the seat will be made from several boards that are laminated together to create a stronger seat surface. The individual boards may be roughly cut with a power saw to start to define the seat shape, but the final curves in the seat that make it comfortable should be carved out by hand.
Rockers
The rockers determine how stable the rocking chair is and how smooth it is to sit in. The rockers are rough cut from lumber using a band or saber saw and then finished by hand using scrapers and planers. Some rockers are also made out of boards that are laminated together. When making the rockers, the length and the radius of the circle need to be adjusted depending on the size of the chair being built. The higher the legs are, the less sharp the curve on the rocker needs to be. Hal Taylor, a rocking-chair craftsman, believes that you should multiply the height of the chair's seat, in inches, by pi to determine the approximate required rocker radius.
Legs, Back and Arms
The style of the legs, backs and arms of your chair will be determined partially by the style of rocking chair that you build. The legs on a rocking chair, for instance, are typically several inches shorter than those on a regular chair. The backs may have vertical or horizontal rails. Simple arms are made from flat pieces of lumber while other styles may feature curved arms for comfort. These are cut and shaped by hand similar to how the rockers are assembled.
Finishing
Traditional rocking chairs take advantages of the beauty of the wood. Some designs might suggest that you paint the chair or use a heavy varnish, which is fine if that is the effect you are looking for. If you build a chair out of a high-quality wood, though, you will get an outstanding finish by sanding the chair with the finest grit sandpaper you can find to create a perfectly smooth surface and then polishing the wood with oil.
Tags: rocking chair, boards that, boards that laminated, chairs were, laminated together, made from, Rocking chairs