So I'm about to knock out my next set of Adirondack chairs and I've done a few
build videos of these in my typical style but I figured it'd be worth doing
more of a how-to type video explaining kind of the process behind what I'm
doing and more of the detailed stuff that you wouldn't typically get in one
of my videos so I've actually got eight chairs I got to build now I'm guessing
that's gonna take me about a week or so well let's get to it
so I'm starting out here with my rough stock I use five quarter by eight it's a
Western redcedar clear vertical grain it takes approximately 30 lineal feet per
chair and I get this all rough sawn from the lumberyard and plane it down to
thickness myself so from a five quarter board I can get this down to a one inch
finished thickness for the chairs let's get these guys plane down
got these all planed down to an inch-thick now the best part the free cedar mulch for
the flowerbeds
I make to many of these I actually got a dedicated storage area within the miter saw station for the template
this chair has been specifically designed to minimize the amount of waste material on
these 8-inch wide boards a lot of pieces kind of fit together like puzzle pieces
when you're laying them out if you're really careful I just find the best
pieces for the arms because those are kind of the focal piece and those
getting the most beating on as well now these arms are a good example of that
really efficient layout you can flip it around upside down and they kind of nest
together then you just need to leave like at least an eighth of an inch maybe a
little bit more for the blade when you're cutting between the pieces
pretty repetitive process especially for this big of a batch of chairs but
basically just go through that whole process kind of nesting the pieces
together as best you can through all these boards and then I cut them down to
a more manageable size if I can get a straight cut across I'll use my cordless
skill saw and if I need to cut between curved pieces I cut with a jig saw. I just
get them cut down small enough so I can bring them inside and cut them down to
the final shape
now any pieces that have flat edges on them will get cut on the table saw so
when I'm laying those out I like to cut one edge flat first and then rip it down to
whatever rough size and I trace those pieces out so I can cut the curved parts
of it on the bandsaw so these main leg pieces here are a little under five and
a half inches so I'm gonna set the table saw to five and a half and then I'll rip
this board down. so now this piece will be a couple of those back legs and the
remainder should be big enough for a couple of back slats
so I always start with the largest pieces first like the arms and these big back
legs here kind of lay those out first and then all the smaller pieces can fit
around them like this arm support is a good example I could fit it in here
around this leg
one of the great things about design of this chair is that while some of the
dimensions are pretty crucial as far as like the height of the legs and things
like that some are more cosmetic dimensions really where you can kind of
fudge them a little bit in if you have to go a little bit smaller to get a
piece instead of throwing that in the scrap pile you can do that one good
example is this arm support bracket here the width of it is not super crucial so
I can fit this piece on here lose about a quarter of an inch now as long as I
use the same size piece on both sides of the chair and there's a pair of them you
won't be able to notice between the different chairs other pieces where you
can do that are the legs as long as you get the height of them right the width
if it's like an eighth of an inch or so off that's all right so I find that that
just helps out a ton with the layout process so now I have all the legs
done the back supports the leg supports and it's just a matter of cutting all of
the back slats and the seat slats which is pretty repetitive it's just a matter
of cutting these boards down to width and then cutting them to length because
they're all basically just rectangles except for the back slats but I just cut
those as rectangles and then cut the top curve on them on the bandsaw later so I
got a little time to go
alright I got a layer of cedar sawdust on me I'm calling it a day. I got all the
pieces cut out so tomorrow is going to be a matter of cutting these all down to
finish size and sanding off the round edges smooth and I'll also start rounding
over the edges on the pieces
alright so day two I'm working on cutting all these pieces down size all
the curves are cut on the bandsaw and then all the straight edges are either
cut on the table saw or on the miter saw most of the rectangular pieces were
already cut down the size when I was cutting everything out yesterday but
there's a few that still have some straight cuts on so all I do is cut an
eighth to a sixteenth of an inch or so outside of the line and then I'll sand
it in to the line outside curves are done on the disk sander and then the
inside curves are done on the belt spindle sander alright let's get to work
All 240 pieces are now cut down to size. It's time to move them over to the sander to
bring them down to the line and bring them all smooth let's start with the
disk sander for the outside curves
So now you can see all the outside curves are looking good
gotta move to the inside curves we'll do that on the belt spindle sander
so next thing on the list we move over to the router table to round over the
edges on all of the pieces for the chairs some edges you round over both
sides some is just one and some you don't round over at all. It's all lined
out in the plan. I just use this 3/8 inch roundover bit it gives you a nice even
shape around all the edges of the piece because of some of the shapes used in these
chairs you get some funky grain patterns you gotta be careful when you're cutting
these round overs I'll usually do climb cuts when I'm going against the grain
and then when you're going with the grain it's just like normal and then
I'll go back and clean it up with a normal cut
So now the pieces are all sanded shaped down the sides with the corners
around it over it's a matter of just doing some pre drilling for all the
screws they're gonna fasten these chairs together all of the holes I use just a
regular countersink bit to pre-drill except for the front and back legs that
use a carriage bolt to fasten them together
I used quarter inch carriage bolts and I drill a 5/16 inch hole is to give it a
little bit of room to assemble before you tighten it up the only pieces I do
not pre-drill are the arms and I will drill those holes during assembly so
first I'll mark all these holes out and then I will head over to the drill press
so all the other chair parts are just simply marked and drilled except for
these seat slats because there's so many of you gets pretty repetitive drilling
out these holes so I made this little plywood jig here that fits these slats
in there perfectly so it seats it right in the right location to pre-drill the
hole that way I can just pre-drill one side spin it around do the other side
and then move on through the seat slats so now we go to the best part
alright so now all the pieces are sanded down and ready for finish. The finish
I use is a spar urethane It's an exterior grade clear coat finish the first coat
is applied just with a rag and I wipe it on this way I can get all six sides of
all the pieces before I assemble them then after assembly I'll spray on
another two coats of the spar urethane and that will build up the finish and
make it really durable this technique in particular is really good because it
gets inside all the cracks and crevices that normally if you applied the finish
after the assembly you wouldn't be able to get to those and a lot of these
services that you aren't able to reach our end grain like the ends of the legs
and where the legs connect to the sea even with something like cedar it'll
last but this will prolong the life even further
now we're on to the the good part of actually putting these guys together all it takes
is a drill and a screw gun and I use these two inch stainless steel square
drive screws to fasten everything together except for the front legs which
I use some carriage bolts so first assembly we're gonna put together is the
backs of the chairs and then we'll go from there. Now notice that only one side of
these back slats is actually rounded over I don't think I mentioned that
during that process but you want to make sure you have enough left hand and right
hand back slats when you're rounding over those pieces so I make sets of
back slats before I round any of the corners over so for assembly the
square back support goes on the bottom and the rounded back support goes on the
top. You start by lining all the back slats even with the bottom of the back
support piece and then Center it within that piece I start by screwing in the
center slat and then work my way out from there
so next is attaching the top back support either side of this can be the
top so you want to look at it and determine which side is going to be the
show face and then put that side towards the top of the back. I pull the slats
apart a little bit to make sure that this back support is lined up right in
the center of this hole and then I Center all those slats together on this
back and fasten the center slit in place then are you gonna do is spread these
out evenly the farthest out slat goes to the edge here and then the rest are
distributed evenly in between those so that's the first assembly completed you
can see how you get that rounded back that really feels good when you're
sitting it
so the next sub-assembly to go together are the front legs these are put
together from two pieces you have the actual front leg and then the support
piece for the arms just a few the stainless steel screws will hold it
together but you want to be careful because you need to make sure that
there's equal number of left and right hand legs together these 3 holes
here are what attach the back legs to the front legs and this single point
here points toward the back of the chair next step is to attach the back leg to
the front leg with these three holes so the assemblies put together using three
of these two and a half inch galvanized carriage bolts the front leg goes on the
outside of the back leg so I start by inserting three bolts through the front
legs then it's just a matter of lining these up and inserting them into the
back leg too then you can install the three washers and the three nuts so for
now I just tighten these up as much as I can get them with my fingers
this will allow me once I get the whole chair assembled together to have a
little bit of movement to square the legs in reference to each other and
then I crank down on these tight so now I have my tower of sub assemblies these
are all ready to go together and just a matter of fastening the backs to the
legs and adding the rest of the pieces I wanna make sure that I have my drills
and screws ready because this is a very awkward maneuver to get these together
and I gave you nice wide shot so you can see the awkwardness and all of its glory
so the backside is fastened in place with two screws in either side down into
the legs so next is these back support pieces there's two per chair one for
each side and to fasten them in place there's two pre-drilled holes and use
that to line up a piece and make sure it's tight with this back side now these
are one of the pieces that I tend to pre-drill prior to assembly because
screwing into this end grain they have a likelihood to correct so the top is
all set next is fascinating the bottom in place and since I use 2-inch screws
and one-inch thick material which is 2 layers thick here I pre-drill at a
slight angle to keep these from poking out from the other side now you want
this back edge to be set off three and a half inches from the back of the leg and
about 1/8" of an inch up off of the ground so then you just copy and paste on the
other side so next we turn the chair around and all of these seat slats can
be installed so first this back most slat is fastened in place
tight against the back slat next I install this top slat here tight against
the back of the front legs then these two shorter slats are fit between the
two front legs and spaced evenly away from this previously installed slat then
these five remaining slats are just spaced evenly within the remaining space
and since I'm awesome I just space these out evenly by eye. Now all of these seat
slats are installed the last two pieces are the arms now with Western red cedar
there tends to be a pretty big variety in color of the pieces between the light
and dark brown so the two pieces I'd always make sure that match very close
are the arms because if they contrast too much it really does look off these
are simply installed with two screws through the back support piece into the
arm and then 3 screws here directly down into the front leg back two screws
are installed first and then the front of the arm can be centered on top of the
leg these 3 these are pre-drilled and then it's
fastened in place you also always want to pre-drill these back to fasteners
otherwise they'll crack
so the final step in the process is applying the last few coats of finish
as you saw before the first coat I just rub on with a rag but I do three more final coats
sprayed on of spar urethane an HVLP sprayer would be ideal but any air powered
sprayer will work I've all the chairs set up on sawhorses here they are
flipped upside down I do the bottom first
and then flip them up right and then I can do 3 coats of finish on the top
which is all the show surfaces and all the surfaces that are going to be
exposed to the weather so I've just gone through and sanded all
these chairs with a 400 grit sandpaper this brings down the finish really
smooth I'll do this between every coat and then apply the next coat of finish. I
let that dry overnight before going to the next coat. Alright so our last coat
of finish is dry now just to wrap these up we need to tighten the carriage bolts
that are holding two sets of legs together. I want to reference this
against a flat surface from the flattest service in my shop is my table saw so
I'm gonna go through and set each chair on top of my table saw and make sure
there's no wobble in either direction. If there is I'll work the twist out of the
chair by pushing it flat and then tighten the carriage bolts on either leg
and tightening these bolts will lock everything in place and then we're done all
done they're getting picked up in the morning which is good because
hey there thanks for watching if you like build some of these for yourself I
do have plans available on my website. And a big thanks to Albany County Fasteners
for sponsoring this build. I get basically all of my hardware from them. They
specialize in stainless steel fasteners but they carry basically anything you'll
be looking for. You can order in quantities from single units up to bulk orders
where you get some really great pricing per unit. Like these Adirondack chairs that you
just saw me built I get all my stainless steel screws in bulk from them as well
as the galvanized carriage bolts. I'm gonna drop a link down below they just
launched a brand new website last week to make it even easier to order. I'm
sure you have some empty peanut butter jars to fill up we'll see you next time.
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