help making rockers for rocking chairs

[pghowell]

Does anyone know of a jig to cut out the rockers for a rocking chair. I have tried to cut it out manually with my band saw but it is not perfect. Can anyone help.

thanks,

[rdubbs]

Could you then use a hardboard/plywood template and a routher with a pattern bit? The overarm pin router would rock on this project!

[ericolson]

When making the rockers, the bandsaw should be used for rough cutting the pattern. To refine the shape, you should do as Rick suggests: make a template of the leg profile and use a router with a pattern cutting bit. I usually make the rough cut on the bandsaw, template rout the pattern for smoothing, and any additional shaping (curves, roundovers, etc) I usually do by hand with a variety of hand tools: files, rasps, spokeshave, etc. If it's a flat profiled rocker, then template routing should do the trick for you.

Eric

[Greenvilleguy]

One more quick comment.

I also rough cut them on the bandsaw after making a pattern and clean them up on the sander. I carpet tape them together before cutting and sanding to insure they end up indentical.

[alancooke]

SS sells plans for an 'Heirloom Rocking Horse' item# 803123 - pg. 89 of latest Father's Day sale catalog. These plans offer some good advice for cutting out the rockers that could be applied to chairs as well. ie. attaching your router to a pivot board allowing you to route a perfect arc with just one step.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm builing one for my g.daughter and I'm almost to that step. His photo shows him doing it and you can see hundreds of rockers stacked up in the background so it must work pretty good.

I know this thread is already pretty old but maybe this will help in the future!

Alan

[alaskanexile]

Couple of yrs ago I made a cradle which was patterned after one which my ancestors brought over from Norway in the 1850's. Did a rough tracing from the old rockers, then cut them out on the band saw like you did. They certainly were far from perfect at that point. Next I slowly worked them down on the disk sander till they were pretty good. Never did get them perfect but, they were considerably better than the originals which were probably all done with hand tools. That still doesn't answer your question about the jig, but if you can find a good original rocker for a reference, and take your time with the disk sander, I'll bet you can do pretty well.
Roger

[rkh2]

I took a class at woodcraft and built a Windsor chair rocker and the method we used was just a template drawn on the wood, and then cut with a band saw and as far as the bottoms, we used an oscillating sander to shape them to the final finish. It seemed to work well, as the chair rocks well.

[Greenvilleguy]

One more quick comment. Cutting rockers provides two more challenges: making them strong and not wasting stock.

I made a couple of rocking horses from plans out of an old Wood magazine (Nov 1995, plans available http://woodstore.net/playpalrocho.html). To provide strength, the rocker blanks were glued up in an interesting way. Each blank consisted of two thicknesses of stock. The inside stock was two pieces with a mitered joint at the correct angle to allow the curves to be cut. The outside stock was three pieces: one long one for the bottom and two sections glued on the ends so the curve rocker could be cut from the assembly. These two were then glued together providing no common joints and an varied grain orientation in each blank.

I tried to upload a picture (in a word doc), but the forum seems to be having "issues" right now. I'll try again later.