Folding Chair

I built this folding chair for my wife to use for her pottery shows. I’ve never built a chair before, much less a folding one, so this seemed like a great opportunity to learn some new skills and see how often I could make some Royal screwups. I succeeded on doing both. 

I started by looking at a lot of images to get a feel of what I liked, and doing some research to determine common angles, seat dimensions, seat height, etc. I decided to work with a design which starts where the long legs are attached to the short legs with a hinge, and a frame is built to connect the legs and attach the seat. I built a prototype out of scrap plywood to work out the angles and proportions of the legs, as well as the hinge placement and location of the groove in the short leg. 

I started the actual build by milling some nice hard maple for the legs. The short legs were all cuts that could be made at the tablesaw. The long legs required a template to achieve the curves at the top, because who doesn’t like some curves at the top? The front legs were attached to the back legs using mortised hinges. I then built the frame, drilling the holes for bolts in the front and holes for the steel pins in the back which would ride in grooves in the short leg. I routed the groove using a router with an edge guide.

I found some beautiful spalted maple for the seat and back rest. I wanted a nice curve in the backrest, but my tabletop bandsaw maxes out at 5” depth for resawing. So I cut the backrest in half, roughed out the curve on both pieces, glued them back together and sanded smooth. I wanted the seat to have some nice contours so I roughed out the shape with a Kutzall disk on my grinder, finishing up with a belt sander and ROS. I used my go to finish, Osmo PolyX hard wax. 

I learned a lot, the wife is happy, on to the next project.