A rocker to share

[wood2woodknot]

I thought everyone would like to see this rocker - for both the artistic value and for the heartwarming thought behind its creation.

[cputnam]

[iublue]

Interesting. When I look at the pic on the left, I hate it but when I look at pic on the right and it's intended purpose, I LOVE it. A very cool idea.

[R Clark]

It is a cool design, and having built two Hal Taylor rockers, I've thought about building one of these.

The one question I've had since I first saw this design was how stable it is if one child were to climb into one of the side seats with no counterbalance on the other side or in the main seat. Rockers always move because they are designed to move. Does that become more of a factor for a raised and shifted center of gravity with only one side having an occupant of 50 pounds?

[wood2woodknot]

WxMan said:

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The one question I've had since I first saw this design was how stable it is ...

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Same here. My firstthought when I looked at the rocker was the base looked much too narrow and too easy to topple. But I couldn't think how to redesign it.

[Ken Vick]

WxMan said:

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It is a cool design, and having built two Hal Taylor rockers, I've thought about building one of these.

The one question I've had since I first saw this design was how stable it is if one child were to climb into one of the side seats with no counterbalance on the other side or in the main seat. Rockers always move because they are designed to move. Does that become more of a factor for a raised and shifted center of gravity with only one side having an occupant of 50 pounds?

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If there is an adult occupying the center seat, that should be enough ballast to stabilize the chair with one child. I think that one child sitting on the side seat alone would cause the chair to topple. Hal's regular chair is surprisingly light weight, one of elegant features of the chair. I can't imagine that these chairs would be enough heavier to be stable with one child in the side seat.

For what its worth, according to Hal's website, he does not sell this design. He complains on the site about someone asking him for permission to build one of these chairs, which he didn't give and then that person building one anyway. Ken

[wood2woodknot]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm....

[R Clark]

Ken Vick said:

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If there is an adult occupying the center seat, that should be enough ballast to stabilize the chair with one child. I think that one child sitting on the side seat alone would cause the chair to topple. Hal's regular chair is surprisingly light weight, one of elegant features of the chair. I can't imagine that these chairs would be enough heavier to be stable with one child in the side seat.

For what its worth, according to Hal's website, he does not sell this design. He complains on the site about someone asking him for permission to build one of these chairs, which he didn't give and then that person building one anyway. Ken

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I definitely think that if there was an adult in the center seat, there would be no worries. However, I'm thinking about a child who would crawl up into an empty chair and sit on one of the side seats with no adult around.

As for the design, I did note that Hal had not put the design up for sale. However, if one has built more than one of Hal's rockers, and one has reasonable design skills, it wouldn't be that hard to do. We already have the joinery skills to do it.

[Richard D.]

Many of you probably already know but, Hal is happy to answer questions over on Creating Rocking Chairs Yahoo Group.