Rocking chair from plywood own hands: materials, drawings and instructions

A rocking chair is a fairly popular piece of furniture in the home and garden. On such an armchair it will be pleasant to relax, sitting on the terrace. Buy it today, you can almost in any furniture store, but there is such an expensive product, so it's better to make it yourself.

To do this, it is necessary to stock up with high-quality material that has moisture-repellent properties. It is important to remember that the plywood in the processing provides for the need to comply with certain rules. And you will need tools for work, for example, a cutting tool that has small teeth.

Materials for an armchair

In the plant conditions, similar models are made of different materials, it can be:

• Steel rolling;
• Solid wood;
• plywood.

The latter is suitable for independent work as best as possible. An array of wood is also used - the chair eventually becomes aesthetically attractive and durable. It can be inscribed in the interior of the apartment and the exterior of the garden. From the plywood, rocking chairs began to be manufactured relatively recently. Factory variants are much cheaper, but they do not look as attractive as those made from natural wood.

Is it worth it to use plywood?

If you have wondered about how to make a rocking chair, you must decide whether to use plywood for this. The material described is a web of thin layers of wood of different species. At the production stage, a thin layer is removed from the log, which is repeatedly glued together with a special composition into a separate slab.

Plywood has a high safety margin, and its texture is similar to natural wood. Before you make a rocking chair, you will need to pick up the material. Preferring plywood, you can save, as well as ensure the convenience of processing the material. In addition, the plywood has a rather attractive appearance and high strength.

On sale you can find canvases of different thickness, which allows you to choose the best option for a certain type of construction and load. A rocking chair made of plywood is made by hand very often. If you also decided to follow the experience of the masters, you should also learn about the shortcomings of this material.

Disadvantages of plywood

The minuses of the material are expressed in low moisture resistance and weakness of the ends. If you do not treat the canvas with a special compound, then it is better not to use them for making garden furniture, which most of the time will be spent outdoors. Over time, this chair will certainly deteriorate. As for the instability of the ends, they also need to be protected, otherwise the material will break up with time.

Preparation of tools and materials

If you are going to make a rocking chair for a dacha, you can be sure that the assembly work will not be difficult. However, in advance you will need to stock up some materials, including:

• Plywood;
• A set of fasteners;
• Joiner glue;
• cardboard.

A rocking chair made of plywood can not be made by hand unless you take care of the availability of a tool kit. For cutting and assembling the piece of furniture, you should prepare:

• Electric jig saw;
• A chisel;
• Ruler;
• pencil;
• Over-file;
• a hammer;
• Gon;
• Roulette.

As for the most important material - plywood - then you will need three sheets. Their thickness should be equal to 20 and 15 mm - this difference will come in handy, because you will make different elements, each of which is subjected to a certain load.

It is better to purchase sheets of standard sizes, which are equal to 1520x800 mm. When a rocking chair is made, the drawings must necessarily be prepared. But the work can not be started not only without them, but also without wood screws. But to join the blanks between them useful joiner's glue. It will be used where self-tapping screws will not be used.

To produce a set of patterns, you need to purchase cardboard. By patterns, you can apply the contours of the parts to the surface of the plywood. A set of saws must be attached to the jigsaw. It is better to choose saws with medium or small teeth, because the material to be cut has several thin layers, and large teeth will simply tear the edge.

Making an armchair

A rocking chair for a dacha should be performed according to a certain scheme. It involves the assembly of the product, which consists of a frame. It will be based on two parts:

• Sidewall;
• Cross strips.

You can supplement the design after manufacture with a soft mattress, which will make this piece of furniture more comfortable. When making a sidewall, it should be shaped like a boomerang. This design will fit into the room with any design. Cross strips are made from the same plywood, they are required for joining two sidewalls. These elements for the assembly will need 14 pieces.

For the installation of the cross bars are necessary stops. They are made of a bar, the cross section of which is 20x40 mm. The bar must be cut into individual pieces of 50 mm. The height of the chair is 1 m, its width and length should be equal to 0.6 and 1.2 m, respectively.

Methods of work

The dimensions of the rocking chair from plywood were mentioned above, however you can design the design yourself. In any case, the order of work will remain the same.

Manufacture should begin with the preparation of a template that will determine the size and shape of the lateral parts. The template should be depicted on a piece of cardboard. Boomerang should have a large lower radial part - this will allow the chair to swing without jerking.

Once the contour lines were applied to the surface of the cardboard, you need to cut out the template using scissors. Now the master has to transfer the marks to the surface of the plywood sheet in order to make two parts with one minimum of waste from one web. Once the contour has been applied, it is possible to start sawing out the side pieces.

When a rocking chair is made from plywood with your own hands, at the next stage the ends of the parts need to be processed with sandpaper. It is important not to leave burrs. Now you need to cut the cross bars - while using 15 mm plywood. These bars should be 14, their length and width will be 600 and 40 mm respectively. After the completion of the work, each bar must be sanded with sandpaper.

Recommendations of a specialist

Now you can prepare the stops for the cross bars. They are made of a bar, the cross section of which is 20x40 mm. On each transverse bar there will be two stops. On each side, the markings for the stub bars are made. The line must repeat the upper end. In this case we are talking about the attachment line.

It is important to pay attention to the step between the bars - it should be the same. As soon as the line of installation of bars has been put on one side, marks should be transferred to other side. If the rocking chair is made from plywood with your own hands, you will need to fix the stub bars. They are attached to joiner glue. It is applied to the surface of the bar and sidewall. In order to ensure high reliability of fastening, in addition it is necessary to use wood screws.

Two sidewalls must be fastened together by cross bars. First you set the first and last, then you can go to the others. To the stiff bars they are fixed with glue and small self-tapping screws. Before they are screwed into the bar, make holes so that the material does not crack. The finished frame is treated with a protective agent at the final stage. It is covered with stain in two layers, then you can start applying the varnish.

How to bend plywood for a rocking chair?

Quite often, home masters are wondering about how to bend plywood at home. It is possible to give the desired bend to almost all types of this material, no matter how thick they may be. Such manipulations may be necessary if the plywood is installed not across, but along the frame.

In general, flexible plywood is sold in construction stores. Usually it has a small thickness (within 4 mm). It is great for different designs. The part is cut to size, and then fixed with screws to the frame. The optimal combination of quality and price is considered plywood made in China. It is quite flexible and has acceptable performance characteristics. If you want to use a more rigid kind of material that you want to bend, you can use combinations of several methods, among them:

• gluing;
• Clipping;
• Steaming.

Piling of plywood

If you will be made a rocking chair, the drawings of which are presented in the article, there may be a need for bending the material. For this, it is better to use the steaming method. It takes a container of boiling water or an iron, which has the function of continuous supply of steam.

The sheet can be simply wet - the soaking time will depend on the thickness of the material and the direction of the bend. After the part has been damped, it is necessary to fix it to the template and fix it, let it dry until it is completely dry. The maximum allowable bend is possible when bending across the fibers. If you work at home, it is better to combine moisturizing and steaming. Steaming should only be the place that should be curved, moisturize only the top layer of veneer.

Collapsible armchair with your own hands

If you perform a collapsible rocking chair from plywood, then you have to act on a different technology. For this, the frame is made of solid wood, since it will withstand higher loads. The interior, which will look like a chair without legs, can be made from plywood.

Two parts of the chair will be connected together by means of special hooks, which can be purchased in the hardware store. In this case, the piece of furniture will occupy less space after disassembly. The chair for the rocking chair from plywood in this case is also depicted on the cardboard. The side pieces will look like two racks of different sizes with a cross member that connects the two elements. The lower part is also executed in the form of a boomerang.