Dad builds three-seat rocking chair to read to his kids at once
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In order to properly read to his three kids, craftsman Hal Taylor built a special three-seat wooden rocking chair.
 
After his third child Rose wanted to be part of the 'reading crowd', Taylor says: "This presented a problem for me because, not having a lap large enough for three children, this meant that Rachael, the oldest, had to stand by the chair at story time. I felt this was not at all fair and thought, 'Well, I make rocking chairs, I can figure this thing out!' And, I did. The StoryTime Rocking Chair is the proof. Now, all three children could have a comfortable seat when reading."
 
Taylor, who has been making rocking chairs since 1992, decided to add the StoryTime Rocker to his rocking chair repertoire after it was such a hit with his family. He's made about 30 so far - selling each for $7,500.
 
He explains describes the chair on his website:
 
Every piece of wood in the chair is carefully matched. The seat is bilaterally symmetrical as you can see from this photo. The joint is perfect because it is hand planed, which takes time.
 
The joints in this chair, there are six just like this, are quite complex and it takes time to make them perfectly. 
 
The finished joint
 
There are over 200 precisely cut and shaped pieces of wood which I use to make up the 19 back braces.
 
As you can see in this photo all of the back braces match, looking like twins. I accomplish this by cutting the back braces sequentially from the same carefully selected board.
 
Every board in the chair is matched to the one next to it. In order to fabricate the three headrests I have to cut 18 separate 5" by 8" billets, cooper the edges (like a barrel) plane the edges by hand and glue them up two at a time. This is how I am able to achieve the amount of curvature in the headrests.
 
 

 

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Robert Dalheim

Robert Dalheim is an editor at the Woodworking Network. Along with publishing online news articles, he writes feature stories for the FDMC print publication. He can be reached at [email protected].