| Blog series by Betsy consisting of 10 parts so far |
Part 1: Day one - prep day
Well – here starts the journey. I’m going to build a set of two chairs with footstools and a table to donate to my church’s services auction. As much as I’d like to donate cedar or cypress or some other really nice wood. I’m going with pine. The preacher and I talked about it and the most likely scenario is that whoever bids on the chairs will probably paint them so no sense using the really good stuff. So I’m going with pine from the big box store. Pick...
Part 2: Adirondack chair - third day of build
Well today is a short evening in the shop. Just enough time to do the front legs and get the leg assembly glued up. First I thought I’d show you a small check on one end of a board. There are obvious reasons to avoid check, but I thought I’d show you that even someone with very little hand strength can break a board if they have a check they can cheat with. Ok – back to the legs. The front legs are 19 3/4” high5 3/8” across the top2 1/8” ac...
Part 3: Today is preping to make the seat assembly - chisel question -
On the first day of this blog I told you to avoid pitch when picking out your boards. I apparently missed a small amount on the edge of one board. So this is what pitch looks like. I’m going to be able to cut around this so it’s not a big deal. Today I’m working on getting the slats ready for the seat assembly. First a few housing keeping things on the leg assemblies. Make sure you have a left and right leg——two lefts don’t make a right——...
Part 4: Seat Assembly
This part will be kind of like watching paint dry. So really not much to see just a lot of repetitive work. The seat assembly is made up of the leg assemblies and 13 slats. From front to back the slats are: flat30 degree on one side15 degree on two sides20 degrees on two sides8 – flat20 degree on one side An extra pair of hands at this stage is helpful to get the parts lined up. I don’t have those hands so I wrestle with the parts and just get them to stand up then work o...
Part 5: The back rest
The back assembly is broken down into five slats, the foundation and one support piece. The center slat is 7” x 33” and has a radius of 3.5”. The radius is easy to make with just a compass. Extend the compass on a ruler until it spans 3.5”. Mark your slat down 3.5 from the top and 3.5 from the side. This gives you your center point. Place the metal tip of the compass on this point and swing the business end in an arc creating your half circle/radius across the top of the board. You now have ...
Part 6: Armrest Assembly - #1
Well I’m back from being sick and spent some time in the shop last night working on the arm assemblies. I worked on the lap joints and the basic shaping tonight. The next step will be to do the finish shaping, the angle for the back support and the assembly itself. First I want to show you that some of the wood I picked despite trying to get the best stuff did have a few problems, but they can generally be worked around. This piece has a check, but by moving the template around on th...
Part 7: Armrest assembly #2
This is the tricky part. Getting the angled cut on the back armrest support. The idea is that you want to cut the required 25 degree angle but not cut it across the entire length of the board. You want to cut from the shoulder of one half lap joint to the shoulder of the opposite end. Can’t do it on the table saw. You could hand chop it – but that’s pretty tough. I prefer the band saw method. First though the reason you don’t want to cut the angled back across the...
Part 8: The chair assembly
Well it’s taken a while—- but I’ve managed to get one of my chairs assembled. The last I left you all I had made the arms and had put plugs in the chair seat. So now it’s time to prepare to pull all the parts together. The first thing is to attach the arm rest supports onto the front legs. You’ll remember when we first cut out the front legs I drilled holes but did not counter sink them. I did that so that I would not accidently put the countersink on the wrong s...
Part 9: Footstool
The church auction is coming up fast. I’ve been out of the power shop for a while. But the last week or so I’ve been inching my way back out there. My chairs are built; now I’m working on the footstools. (I don’t think I’ll get to the table before the auction.) This is where I’ve gotten so far. The first was simply putting an 8 degree angle on the top of the two supporting legs. This is easy enough. Just move your chop saw to 8 degrees – line up...
Part 10: Had to hurry up and get done - so here is the finished project
OK – the auction is coming up quick and they are supposed to be picking up my chairs this week so I had to hustle and get these done. I, therefore, did not take as I go pictures on the finish up. Sorry about that. But here is the finished project. I was not sure which picture of the 4 I liked best so I’ve put them all here so you can decide! And just FYI – yes my health is improving——but I must confess to pushing the limits a bit to getting the...
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Blog Series
- Adirondack Chair build how to - Betsy's version - 10 parts
- Armrest assemly - #1 - 0 parts
- Hand Tools doings - 25 parts
- Making a short fence - 2 parts
- My woodworing ideas and tips - 6 parts
- Small Cabinet - 1 part
- Woodworking vacation - 12 parts
- Woodworking vacation tidbits - 3 parts
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