Need child rocking chair plan

[Carol Johnston]

I've been asked to make a rocking chair for a 5 year-old child. After an extensive search, the plan I like most is one from Wood Magazine, May 2008, "Classic Rocker". Does anyone know how I could scale this plan down to fit a child? Or does anyone know of a child's rocker plan that I could use? Thanks!

[Dave Richards]

You could sort out a few basic dimensions such as seat height or width and use those to figure a scale factor and apply it to the dimensions given. Some dimensions will need small adjustments so you don't wind up making parts with dimensions such as 7/64".

Some years ago I did a plan for a child-sized version of Rietveld's Red Blue chair for a friend. I started by drawing it full sized in SketchUp. Then I scaled the model down and tweaked the dimensions of the parts to make them easy to cut. I've also done it for doll furniture as with this bed by Gary Rogowski. That seems to work well.

You might also have a look at Ana White's site. There may be a child-sized rocker that would do the trick.

[Lee Schierer]

Find a child's rocker in a store and measure the height of the seat above the floor. Divide the height of the chair you measured in the store by the height of the seat on your plans to get an adjustment factor. Then using the plan you have multiply the dimensions from your plan by the factor to get the dimensions for the parts to make your child size chair. Apply that factor to all your dimensions. Round all dimensions up to they nearest 1/8" and build your rocker.

[Jamie Buxton]

Here's a cute one --- http://www.thewoodcrafter.net/proj/p21.php

I found this by googling with "child's rocker plans".

[Dave Lash]

The November 2015 issue of Wood Magazine has plans for a Pint-size Rocking Chair which you could build or scale for size dimensions.

Pint-size Rocking Chair.jpg