Bow Arm Rocker

This modified design builds off a classic Morris chair.

- By Willie Sandry

Inspiration for the next project can come from many sources, but for me, all it took was a trip to an antique furniture dealer. Legacy Modern is a boutique dealer in Portland, OR specializing in arts and crafts furniture, and they happened to have an original Morris chair that caught my eye. It was a Gustav Stickley #336 Morris chair, and I thought it would be the perfect starting point for a Morris rocker.

So, I took detailed measurements from the original chair and created a CAD drawing. However, I wanted a rocking chair rather than an armchair, so I had some additional work to do. To my knowledge, Gus Stickley never produced a bow arm Morris rocker. So, I surrounded myself with rocking chairs to ferret out the keys to good rocker geometry.

I acquired several rocking chairs— from antique to reproductions—to test and measure. I discovered that despite the varied size and style of these chairs the rockers were nearly universal. I chose the rocker radius I liked best an amalgamation of two of my favorite rockers, which turned out to be r=44.