Glider range of motion -- short travel

[Don Jeansonne]

I recently completed my first glider. I patterened it from a porch swing that I have been making for awhile. To turn it into a glider I purchased some 7.5 inch metal glides specifically for gliders from Rockler. I used some features from glider patterns in magazines and adapted to my swing. The glides are mounted vertical and are about 19" apart. The glider works smooth but the back-and-forth motion only has about 3 - 4 inches of travel. This makes it jerky and not a realtively long smooth gliding motion.

Does anyone have suggestions on what to set or change on the metal glide locations or spacing, etc.?

[Norman Hitt]

Don, the 7 1/2' long swing arms are too short. To see how it all relates, get a large sheet of wrapping paper and draw a line across it close to and parallel to the top edge, then from the center of that line draw a bolt size circle on that line 9 1/2 " either side of the center of that line. Now take a compass rose and draw a long line straight down from the center of each of those small circles and place a small mark on each of those lines the length of your center hole to center hole 7 1/2" swing arms. now place a mark along those vertical each inch past that first mark. Take a compass or a string and pencil and draw an arc from each of the top circles that crosses the verticlal lines at each mark. You can now draw another straight line from those two top circles at a 45* angle to the vertical lines. With this you can see at the different leg lengths how much travel forward and backward you would get with the different length legs/swing arms, and also now much up and down movement of the seat you would get. Note: I know I didn't desctibe this too well and it's probably clear as mud, but Maybe it will help, ("IF" I'm thinking of the same type glider kit that you are using).

[Don Jeansonne]

Norman
Thanks for the response. I will try to layout what you descibed. I agree that a longer bar would make a longer arc travel but these are sold as solution so I assumed they are good (maybe bad assumption !!!!!).

The problem I have is that I have metal glider from Walmart that has the same 7 1/2" glide bars and it works very well. The differences I see is that they aren't hung vertical and they are located about 2 - 3" closer together. Neither explain the differnce to me. They just seem to start the swing at a different arc point.

This confuses me.