Why are Hal's Chairs so Comfortable?

When I started making rocking chairs it never made any sense to me for back braces to be glued in position as this would eliminate any opportunity for the back brace to cooperate with a sitters back! Flexible back braces contribute incredibly to any chairs comfort. The opportunity here is: To create a chair with flexible back braces in which the back braces remain durable while maximizing the flex.

My back brace technology has evolved over the years and although many have copied my techniques, few (with the exception of my students) have achieved the level of comfort that my chairs afford.

My back braces have more pieces of wood in them than most rocking chair makers have in their entire chair! To make a complete set of seven back braces requires sixty three pieces of wood as there are nine pieces for each back brace!! The end result is a back brace that is one half inch thick at the bottom, for strength, four tenths of an inch at the top and tapering to one quarter of an inch in the middle, where the back brace needs to flex in order to conform to the sitters back. The following photo shows, to a degree, what is going on.

Looking at the back brace where it enters the seat hole you can see a dark strip in the center which gets gradually thinner as it moves towards the headrest, disappearing completely if you look above the arm. There are two more of these tapered strips exactly this dimension in the bottom and two in the top. These small wedges are what provides the strength I want at the top and bottom.

In addition, my headrests are not flat, as they are in the vast majority of other rocking chairs. Since a human beings back is not flat but rounded slightly I make my headrests with a very generous curve so that the back braces, are held in an exquisitely comfortable curve which conforms to your back. You might also notice the very comfortable lumbar support.

The following gallery will show several photos which accentuate these two features of my rocking chairs.

Enjoy! In order to get a longer view of any photo hold your cursor over the image.