Diy adirondack chair: instructions with drawings and photos

Recommendation points

• What a miracle and what to make it from
• Standard detailing of the chair
• We make parts serially
• Long lasting tree – how to protect garden furniture
• Seat assembly, attachment points

Want your own real throne? One of the most popular garden chairs, the Adirondack, is an easy-to-make, spacious and comfortable seating area. We have described for you the process of making an adirondack chair with your own hands, which will not be difficult for you to make.

What a miracle and what to make it from

The Adirondack is a comfortable chaise-longue-style chair in which you can comfortably recline on a wide back and indulge in contemplation. The name comes from the area where its inventor lived. The beauty of an armchair is that it can be manufactured with special ergonomics and seat shape..

Traditionally, adirondack is made from an inch board 100 and 150 cm wide. The lumber for the chair should be chosen as high quality as possible, the use of fruit and hard wood with a rich texture is encouraged: maple, aspen, pear, larch. You can use beech and hornbeam parts of transport pallets and boxes, if you have the means to handle them. Such garden furniture will take its rightful place in the garden if you open it with pastel-colored alkyd enamel or apply stencil inscriptions under varnish.

Perhaps a chair, knocked together with ostentatious roughness from plywood or an aged board, will fit well into the situation on the site. It is recommended to work with sheet materials only if you have a milling cutter with a finger mill or a band saw, otherwise the cutting of parts will be greatly delayed. Difficulties in drawing up a rational cutting scheme are also possible, but otherwise the choice of material is solely a matter of your taste.

Standard detailing of the chair

The basis of the adirondack is a wooden shield, knocked down from two wide boards set on the edge, on top of which thin wooden slats are stuffed. Due to the curved shape of the ribs, the planks lie along the seat bend you define. At the front of the backboard, the seat forms a traditional rounding so that the last strip holds the backboard in the transverse plane. In the back of the shield, the ribs protrude from a third to half of the seat and act as rear legs..

From the front, the shield is raised by 25–40 cm with 150 mm wide boards screwed on the sides – the front legs. They can be strictly rectangular and located perpendicular to the floor, you can also tilt them with a trimming of the bottom end or choose a decorative bend on the front face. The legs rise 25-30 cm above the seat, the upper ends should be cut strictly parallel to the floor.

1 – front leg; 2 – side seat support; 3 – rear seat rail; 4 – lower back support; 5 – upper cross member of the back; 6 – bolts with a round head: 7 – back boards; 8 – armrest; 9 – seat rail; 10 – front bar; 11 – kerchief (armrest support)

From above, the front legs are covered with two wide boards that form armrests. The length of these parts corresponds to the depth of the chair; curly trimming is also possible here. The tails of the armrests are pulled together by another strip of a narrow board, which serves as the upper support for the back. At this point, the armrests can be reinforced with two vertical boards attached to the edge of the rear legs, but this is a departure from the original design.

It is customary to make the bed a little concave, so the back is much more comfortable. For this purpose, the edge of the crossbar connecting the armrests is made with a semicircular recess. The edge board of the seat is cut in the same way, 4–6 wide boards are screwed to the ends, forming the back. Boards can be laid close, with a gap, fanned out and change the shape of the parts as your imagination tells you. The upper edge of the back is traditionally cut with a rounding.

To decorate a summer cottage with durable and beautiful furniture, it is recommended to assemble a prototype, and then adjust its ergonomics for yourself. Parts can be trimmed and fastened in place, later you will remove templates from them for accurate marking of cutting lines and drilling locations.

We make parts serially

Assembling chairs of an original shape and then decorating them is a great idea for a business. In any case, the most useful methods for the serial production of identical parts, which are mostly processed in pairs, or even in a stack of 3-4 pieces. Planks serve as blanks in any case, if you use sheet materials – first cut them into rectangular fragments.

The number of parts to be cut at a time depends on the cutting method. The jigsaw cuts about 50–60 mm without distortion, that is, a folded pair of blanks. A finger mill will take three, and a band saw up to 5.

The first detail is the wide boards of the seat base, 75–80 cm long. The required number of blanks is fastened with a clamp, the part is marked on the top surface. First, use a long drill to drill two 8 mm holes in the front of the seat for attaching the legs and one 20 cm from the ends of the legs. Along the holes, the parts are fastened with bolts with a semicircular head, ground down to a thickness of 2–2.5 mm. The nuts are located on the side of the marking, a wide head is laid under them.

The supporting part of the leg is cut at an angle of up to 30 °. The opposite edge of the board is trimmed to the difference between 90 ° and the first cut. At the top of the workpiece, the seat bend is cut, the tails of the rear legs are made a little thinner.

It is recommended to cut the jumper between the armrests and the extreme rear seat plate from one piece of 150×25 mm, about 60–65 cm long. The markings are applied so that the back curvature arcs are exactly 25 mm apart. The combination of several workpieces is performed through the armrest attachment holes.

1 – lower back support; 2 – rear seat rack

backrest upper cross member (armrest support)

Boards on the back have a maximum length of about 70 cm and are usually cut in pairs (left and right) with rounded ends.

The seat rails and front legs are simple rectangular, with only one end cutting and drilling job. The armrests can be of any shape, several blanks can be fastened together through two holes: for fixing the jumper and for confirming the front leg.

Gussets can be made from one square piece of board, sawn diagonally in a straight line or with a mirror bend.

After trimming, the ends of the fastened blanks must be processed with a belt sander, after which the parts must be unfastened and processed individually with sandpaper. The legs, rails and backrests can be chamfered straight. The edges of the backrest and armrests can be shaped figured. Finally, a fine sanding is carried out with zero grinding until smooth and texture is obtained..

Long lasting tree – how to protect garden furniture

Usually, the Adirondack chair is almost always in the open air. For a long service in such conditions, the tree requires mandatory processing.

First of all, each of the parts is soaked in a bath with a transparent antiseptic for 15–20 minutes, after drying, the boards must be treated with fine sandpaper again.

The decorative finishing of the parts is done before final assembly. Wood with a pronounced texture can be opened with two to three coats of clear polyurethane varnish. It is better to finish parts made of birch or ash with tinting compounds or pre-burn with alcohol parquet primer.

Seat assembly, attachment points

The ribs of the seat base are held together by its two outer strips on different sides. The holes made 12 mm from the edge will be drilled for 45 mm confirmation or 60 mm anodized screw. The front edge of the seat rises, the front legs are attached with bolts with a rounded head on the sides, tighten the nuts under the washer from the inside.

In the center of each leg, headscarves are attached flush with the upper edge – one confirmation from the inside is enough. An armrest is superimposed on top, the pre-drilled holes are expanded to screw three confirmations: one into the scarf and two into the end of the leg. Rear edges are bolted to the backrest, nuts and washers can be hidden in pre-milled cells.

This is followed by the installation of the backrest boards. They rest on the lintel and are attached to the end of the rear seat plate with confirmations. The second line of fasteners is made to the lintel.

After assembly, the chair must be opened with varnish or oil and well painted over the places where the fasteners are installed. Enjoy your stay!