The Baby Cradle project, continued: Rocking the Cradle

Hi Everyone,

After the major triumph of several days ago, I began to give some thought to the cradle rails and just how these will be attached to the cradle box.

I've been searching on the Internet for guidance on drawing a large arc and for how to determine the degree of arc for the rails. The only thing I could find was a blog about rocking chair rockers which doesn't quite work for a baby cradle (the link to the site is: Rocking Chair University. This is a really worthwhile site so keep it for future reference). So after a day of thinking about this, I decided to go down to the workshop and fiddle around for a bit. Here's the photos:

Drawing an Arc

Drawing an arc on a piece of wood is really simple. I think I found this method on Lumber Jocks, a favorite hangout of mine and it's really simple-as I was reading the posting there I had one of those "why the hell didn't I think of that" moments:

I got an old 2x4 and clamped it down on a saw horse:

And marked off a 24" wide section of it and also marked off the center line at 12" :

I nailed 2 nails into the 2x4-one at each end, 1" down from the top edge of the board and another at the bottom end of the mid line. Then I took a flexible metal strap and placed the outer edges of the strap above the nails and the middle of the strap below the nail at the mid point:

And I drew an arc:

And just for the heck of it, I drew a wider arc just below it using the same method and marked off:

And here is where I am at the moment. For the moment I prefer the wider of the two arcs so the cradle will have less of a rocking motion side to side:

Next, I need to figure out the framework for the bed and the attachment framing for the rockers.
Stay tuned,
VW