Craft a Cedar Adirondack Chair

This has been one of my favorite projects to work on. I have always loved these chairs at the beach or just in a back yard during the summer. Here is the rather brief Wikipedia page about them if you want. What started this project is that my wonderful wife and I just bought our first house recently and it has a detached workshop and deck in the back so I decided the deck needed some patio furniture and the I just couldn't pass up making some myself in my new shop! I looked around and immediately loved the idea of an Adirondack set.



For this project I was pretty much clueless about everything, other than they were going to be made from wood :) so I found this guide at Popular Mechanics which was very good and has an incredible interactive 3D design window you can look at the chair with, but it lacked in a few minor areas of detail that I had to figure out on my own, so I give it a 9 out of 10 as it was still easy to follow, very simple and straight forward, and it does cover almost everything you need to know. It only was missing a few measurements and angles that would have saved me putting on my trigonometry hat on and dragging out the TI-83. I started with the guide and then ended up winging it the rest of the way just referring to the guide for the measurements.

The approximate cost was $100 per chair and about $10 for the drink table, but you can almost make the table from the chair leftovers. This is for the 3 cedar boards which were around $30 each at home depot and the .5" and 1.25" wood screws, wood plugs (to cover the screws) adding up to around $10 more. I used Thompsons water seal which is not included in the estimate because I had it sitting around it and you don't need much of it. I also am not including sandpaper and replacement of the countersink bit I broke on chair 1 due to operator error (I slipped). Total project time is something of a mystery to me as I did this in my free time over a month or two spending an hour or so at a time a couple times per week. If I had to guess, around 20 man hours per chair, this includes the Trig. time and figuring out other missing information as well.

Want to make one yourself or just curious how I did it?

1. Go download and print off the plans yourself (or search for a different one)

2. Make sure you have the right tools. You will need: A circular saw, jig saw or band saw, router, sander (or just sandpaper and elbow grease), drill and screwdriver. The bits/blades that I used were (10" circular blade, medium sized wood cutting jigsaw blade, 1/4 round-over router bit, 60 120 and 220 grit sand paper, 3/8th inch countersink drill bit, a plain old Phillips screwdriver bit, tape measure, square, straight edge, ruler etc.






3. Get the materials. I used:

• 3 1"x12" x 8' red cedar boards per chair with a lot of good scraps.
• 1 box of 2" #8 wood screws.
• 1 box 1.5" #8 wood screws.
• 1 box round oak plugs (50 per pack).
• 1 can of Thompsons water seal or any waterproof finish.

4. Get the plans and follow them (too obvious?). Measure out all of your cuts to your board, if you are familiar with Tetris, use that mentality to make them all fit with the least amount of wasted wood. Start with the biggest pieces first and fit in the small ones around those. Draw them all out with pencil lightly and then make your cuts with the circular and jig saws. (My grandfather always told me to remember the old saying "Measure twice, cut once", and he is correct!)

5. Once all the pieces are cut out you need to sand them all then route the appropriate edges (all exposed edges not butting up to another board) using the quarter round bit.

6. Next, arrange the pieces, drill your countersinked holes where needed and screw the pieces together.

7. Fill all the screw holes with plugs. I just tapped them in lightly with a hammer.

8. Give it a good coat or two of water seal using a paint brush or old rag or t shirt (something that will not leave lint pieces). Let each coat dry for 24 hours or so. You can also use other exterior finishes such as a stain or varnish or even an oil based paint (Obviously, this last option will hide the wood and grain patterns entirely, you could make the chairs out of a cheaper wood, pine maybe, and paint them a bright pastel color for the typical Adirondack look.)

9. Clean up the mess and relax.





And a few finished shots.