Deck Chair Build-completion photos and comments

Hi Everyone,

Well here's the chair:

Comments

Well, it came out better than I initially thought it would. What I wanted was a strong, heavy chair and I certainly got that. I also wanted a chair that would support anyone who drops by and I feel this chair can certainly handle that.

I felt early on that the chair would look best if it had a rustic appearance and I think I've accomplished this. Trying to make it look very refined I don't think would look the best but it's always best to remember that a rustic appearance doesn't mean poor craftsmanship. The scratches, dings, and sawing marks were intentional and I'm quite happy with it's overall appearance.

The size of the chair-having said all this, the chair is a little too big for me. I'm 5'3" and I tend to slump back when I sit on it. My husband is 5'8" and he fits perfectly and loves the chair. And if I ever make another one, I would slant the rear of the seat down an 1". So keep that in mind if you plan on making one.

Speaking of plans, I found the drawings a little confusing, and you'll remember me putting the rear legs on incorrectly. If you purchase a set, be very sure you read the plans several times before proceeding with your build.

All in all however, I feel if you follow the plans carefully, you'll wind up with a very sturdy chair that can be finished or decorated in a variety of ways and that is unique - no Adirondack chair here!
So the plans are recommended.

This one is finished!

What's next? Well, I'm doing some spoon carving and I have to get the lathe looked at and I'll probably get to that in November. And I'm going to continue making some small shelves for some pottery items I have as well.

Well, thanks for dropping by and stay tuned. There's always another project on the horizon!

Best,
VW

Deck Chair Build, continued-construction is complete

Hi Everyone,

My goodness, the effort we humans go through just to make a chair-whew!

So here is the chair with the arms, moulding, and infill boards attached and it came out the way the plans specified:

This is a close up of the infill slats. I've found several Mexican tile vendors online and I'm going to take a good look at all of them. The wood slats are 4" wide so I'll have to find some tiles that will fit that. Also I've decided to just pick tiles and colors at random so as to liven up the appearance of the chair:

I need to do some more touching up of the stain and then clean the chair surface very well in preparation for varnishing but I think it will come out looking fine.

I'll post completion photos in the next week or two.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair Build, continued: Staining and finish work and the infill section

Hi Everyone,

Well I went down to the wood shop to check on the chair and it's still a little oily feeling from yesterday's staining. So I let it continue to dry out and that will probably take several more days for it to really be bone dry and ready for varnishing.

While it's drying out, I made the slats for the infill and stained them red like the chair seat and I also cut and trimmed a small piece of moulding to cover the long joint line between the 2x4s that the front legs are built from. Those I've stained brown to match the legs. See the next two photos:

I've been looking at Mexican tile online and I'm not sure how that will come out. Most of the tile I've seen are printed with patterns and the separations between those slats in the photo above might disrupt that pattern enough that it winds up looking kind of odd. I'll keep exploring that however-I think those tiles would add some much needed color and detail to the chair.

I'm going to begin cleaning out the shop and get the chair dusted off for staining next.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair Build, continued-staining

Hello All,

Well I've begun staining the chair and it looks better than it did. Here's the photos:


I was going to mask off the chair seat but the tape wouldn't stick to it so I got some heavy printer paper out and cut it into strips and stuck the edges into the crevice between the chair seat and the rest of the frame and it worked. It kept the brown stain off of the red stain:

After that I proceeded to stain all of the framework I could reach. I left the stain on for about 5 minutes and wiped off the excess and I'm glad I did or it would have gotten darker than I would have liked:

And here are the arms of the chair which have largely been in the background:

Now I'm going to let the whole thing dry really well so I probably won't be back to work on it until late tomorrow. Then I'll stain the underside and touch up the little nooks and crannies with cotton applicators and more stain.

The decision as to whether or not it's an outdoor chair has been decided: it will be an indoor chair that is capable of going outdoors so I'm going to finish it with spar varnish. That will give it a shiny finish and the gold color of the varnish should give the chair colors a more rich look.

The infill, which is the last part to be built, will be made out of 3/8" thick pine lattice, stained red like the chair seat and then have some Mexican tile glued to it to give the chair color and detail. So we have a ways to go.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair build, continued-The Finish

Hi Everyone,

Well the time has come to put the finish on the chair and I've decided to do the chair in two colors: Minwax Red Chestnut for the seat and infill and Honey for the rest of the chair frame. I've done some sanding and I've got the chair seat stained. Here's the photos:

I needed to do some sanding before the staining. I tipped the chair all over to get it smoothed out and the dowel plugs sanded flush:

Next I gave it another coat of wood sealer as it's been a week since I put on the original sealer. Then I masked off the seat in order to stain it red:

And here it is. This type of stain is designed to be wiped on with a rag or paper towels but I used a small foam brush to apply it. It gave me a little more control over the stain in tight corners and along the edges:

I left the stain on for 5 minutes and then wiped off the excess and I like the shade of red that it is:

Now I'm going to go and have some lunch and come back and finish staining the rest of the frame and I'll do another posting later today.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair build, continued

Hi Everyone, 

Well, I worked for a time today on the chair. I got the lower rear back part screwed in place and here is what it looks like right now:

In the plans, that large open space you see in the back of the chair is filled with wooden slats that are stained a different color from the rest of the chair. I've been debating what to fill that space up with- wooden slats with perhaps some Mexican tile fixed to them, or maybe a metal grate with a design of some sorts. And I'm going to stain the chair a darker color but I might just do a two-tone stain with the seat and the arms a different color from the rest of the chair. Not sure yet what I'll do.


I've also purchased some wooden moulding to give the chair a little more of a finished look. I'll be applying that before I stain the chair:

For the next several days I'm going to sand and fix any problems I see and then stain it. If you have a suggestion as to what to do with the back of the chair, send me a note.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair Build, continued-building the seat

Hi All

Well, the seat is done and I'm really bushed. It's been hot and humid and very dirty in the wood shop but that portion of the build is done. Here's the photos:


The seat consists of two rails, front and back, for the seat parts to sit on. I used some left over wood from this project for that:

The seat parts-that I didn't have enough 2x6 lumber for those parts so I used 2x6 lumber, some 2x3s, and some 2x4s for the seat. All the parts were screwed down into place with the screws being covered up with wooden plugs:

Here is the chair with the seat in place:

Next steps: I have to screw a 2x6 board between the back pieces and then sand everything down real well. After that I'm going to re-stain it a darker color. Then attach the arms. When that is all finished there will be some slats out of wood that comprise the back of the chair. Exactly how I'll finish that section is still up in the air.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair Build, continued/Victory!!

Hi Everyone,

Wow, it got hot here today and humid on top of that. Wonderful weather in the wood shop-not!!

Well, I disassembled the chair and re-assembled it and I also screwed on the back parts, and the front and rear seat support parts. I can tell you that the various parts are truly square to one another and the chair legs sit flat on the floor and the whole thing doesn't wobble. 

Here's a photo of it thus far:

Ok, that part of the build is done. Next I'm going to build the seat, attach a rear part that will sit behind the seat and then build the infill part. And I'm going to re-stain it to a darker color. The color I have now makes it look unfinished. Lastly it will get a water-proof finish so it can stay out of doors.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair build-continued/beginning the assembly, I think

Hi Everyone,
Well the wood stain is finished and this is the color at this point in time:

It's pretty much the natural color of the wood.

It's been a busy day but I had a couple of hours this afternoon to mess around with it so I thought I would do a dry assembly of the parts just to see what this is going to look like and get a better sense of the size of the chair.

To begin, I clamped an old 2x4 down to the work table so I could properly line up the legs:

And then I began assembling the sides. I was a little unclear about exactly how this goes together but I did figure out how to orient the front legs and the lap joint properly so I proceeded to assemble both sides of the chair:

Once I did that, I got out my clamp collection and put the chair together and I thought it looked a little bit large, especially the space where the seat will be. I grabbed one of the arm pieces with the idea of clamping it in place for the photograph and that part didn't fit. As I was really careful cutting out the parts, it took me a minute of looking at it to realize that I assembled the sides incorrectly. The rear legs should be on the inside of the frame and not on the outside of the frame so I have to take it apart and re-do it in the morning:

But the good news is at least the parts fit properly and the chair doesn't rock! Well that's good news anyway.

So tomorrow I'll re-do it and we'll see how it goes from there.

Stay tuned,
VW

Deck Chair Build-Discussion, plans, photos

Hi Everyone,

Well, I had some time off and while I was doing other things, I began thinking about building a chair for my deck. Here's the discussion about that:

 Discussion
My home and it's contents are badly worn out and I've discarded a lot of old stuff, including a lot of my old furniture. I don't have a lot of stuff left and all I have to sit on in my living room is a couple of IKEA chairs and on my deck, several old plastic webbing chairs. I do need some living room furniture and some heavy duty deck chairs that can stand the weather we get here.

So I went looking for some plans and I came across some plans on Etsy by Les Kenney of www.buildeasy.com. If you have looked for wooden chair plans on Etsy I'm sure you've seen it:https://www.etsy.com/listing/568951569/garden-chair-and-bench-combo-woodworking?ref=ap-listing. The chair fits as it's made out of 2x6 construction lumber and it's heavy duty and should withstand our winters here so I ordered a set of plans which come as a pdf file to your email address.

Photos

So I purchased the lumber and got to work on it. Most of the parts are rectangular in shape and not difficult to cut. But the back legs and back support are cut out of one piece of 2x8 lumber and that was difficult. Also there are 4 lap joints that need to be made and that was difficult as well. Here are some photos of the parts:

The arms cut out from two long pieces of 2x6 and in order to get that long diagonal cut you see I used my bandsaw and cut out the arms bit by bit:

The back and rear leg part was next and that was the most difficult part to cut out and I did that next. The back support is cut at an angle to the legs and to top it off a lap joint has to be cut out so a back piece will fit into the supports:

So I clamped the back supports together and marked them.  And I made the shoulder cuts on my band saw and that was my first mistake:

I proceeded to cut out the waste section with the band saw:

and started to break out the pieces with a mallet. This part went alright:

But the shoulder cuts are not perfectly straight and perpendicular to the bottom of the joint so the back part did not fit squarely into that joint. This set off about an hour of sanding and filing and trying to get that back part to fit properly. Eventually I made it but the back part fits loosely and I'm going to have to deal with this when it comes time to assemble the chair:

And this is what that portion of the chair looks like at present:

The front legs-according to the plans, the front legs are made out of 2 pieces of 4x4 with a deep lap joint that supports the seat sides and front supports cut into the 4x4. I bought a 4x4 but at the last moment decided it would be better just to dig into the wood pile and make the legs by gluing up several pieces of 2x4 to replicate these parts:

I glued and screwed all three leg parts and made two legs. I think this went better that it would have with me trying to cut those joints out of the 4x4.

I still have the chair seat parts to cut out and I'll do that probably tomorrow.

So looking ahead, I need to sand all the parts and seal the wood before I assemble the chair. I think it will look better and this will also allow me to get wood sealer into all the nooks and crannies of the chair.

Stay tuned,
VW