How to Build a Lounge Chair - Woodworking Plans Available

hey that chair looks pretty familiar doesn't it maybe not well it looks pretty familiar to me and if you ever watched any of my videos before i joined the four eyes furniture youtube channel then maybe you've seen it before too [Music] it's actually one of the first designs that i came up with when starting my custom furniture business and long before i started making youtube videos and i've probably built this chair more times than any other piece so it's a special one to me this specific chair is actually going to be the first chair that i'm keeping for myself and honestly it's very likely the last version of this chair that i ever make i don't mind i don't mind and i even made and have been offering my own set of written plans for this chair for a couple years now but now that chris and i have been making our new long-form video plans i felt like this chair deserved a new rendition and our new plans are so much more detailed than the version i used to offer which i hope makes this piece even more accessible to people that have been wanting to build it but maybe needed a bit more instruction to help them get there we also made a couple very slight changes and we even designed an ottoman for it which will be a separate video coming out next week and is an optional add-on for the plans so check out the link to the plans in the description if you're interested but for now let's get into the build so i started by using my templates and i have my lumber broken down and my rough cut parts have been milled to final thickness with one jointed edge and i can get into shaping each part by the way i'm working on the legs for the chair right now [Music] templates and a couple router bits are my preferred way to get my parts to final shape a few passes with a template bit then one final pass with the flush trim bit and i have a smooth shaped edge on each part and i can then move on to cutting the joint faces on the table saw [Music] [Applause] [Music] cutting the joint faces might be one of my favorite parts of the build process there's just something satisfying about having a part with two clean edges and two long messed up ends that then get trimmed nice and clean so let's go ahead and set up a couple table saw sleds to do just that this is definitely my preferred method to make these cuts and using the templates to set everything up makes it pretty foolproof and i would know because it works for me the front and back legs just require a single cut as they'll get trimmed to length later and the arm parts will get a second cut using a stop block on the sled to make sure both arms are exactly the same length [Music] from there i just needed to cut in my dominoes for each joint and i decided to double them up here as we go along you'll notice this chair utilizes the domino quite a bit and that's because i actually designed this chair right after buying a domino and really wanted to see how i could use it that being said we show many different joinery methods in our plans to make this chair doable even without a domino [Music] so with all of the mortises cut in it was just a matter of gluing up the leg assemblies and for gloves like this i like to use these little clamping blocks the company i bought these from no longer makes them but it's really easy enough to make your own [Music] [Applause] [Music] after letting the glue up cure overnight i could finesse all the inner joint transition areas to make sure they were nice and smooth then cut the leg assembly to length using a track saw [Applause] [Music] do [Music] and sure enough just like that we have two leg assemblies from there it was time to start working on the seat and i like to start with the seat side parts the process to make these is basically identical to the legs the only difference is that i'm using three quarter inch thick material and there's only two parts on each seat side assembly so to speed up the process here let's cue the montage [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you got it let's do more [Music] all right with the seat sides finished i could then get back to work on the two seat panels which are made up of four walnut frame parts and four beach center slats for each panel the process for making the two seat panels is relatively easy from a fabrication standpoint as everything is just rectangles the tricky part is keeping everything organized and making cuts in order essentially it comes down to cutting all the same length parts at the same time easy enough concept to keep straight but like i mentioned before so i then can take all of the rectangles i've cut and start laying them out into the seat panels and then marking out where i'll cut in the mortises i use two dominoes at each end of each vertical piece and the only trick here is that i offset the two outside walnut parts by just a bit maybe a 16th or so what this does is after the glue up it leaves me with a long reference edge to place against my table saw fence to trim both my seat panels to final width which you'll see here in a second so once i have all of the mortises cut but before i glue up each seat panel i first need to add a few round overs to some of the edges that won't be fully accessible afterwards so i knocked those out on my router table then could get to gluing up both panels so with both panels glued up i could trim them to size and at the same time cut in the bevel on one end of each panel to then attach them with a miter joint i first trim both edges clean and to width using that offset edge i talked about a minute ago [Music] i can then set my blade angle to match my seat side templates since the angle between the seat panels needs to match the angle of my seat side assemblies with the saw set i can make that cut on both panels and i set my fence so that i'm just hitting that outside upper corner and not taking off too much material [Music] with the bevels cut i can cut in a few domino mortises and get ready for the glue up i once again utilize some clamping blocks to make this glue go as smoothly as possible and as long as i have everything in the right spot i'm able to get even clamping pressure which will result in a nice clean joint [Music] at this point i have my seat side assemblies and my seat panel glue up so i think it's about time i make a full blown seat assembly and the way to do that is with some floating tenons those are just dominoes along the edge of the seat but this time they're inset slightly so that the seat panel assembly sits just inside the back edge of the seat sides [Music] [Music] real quick before i hammer in all of these dominoes let's talk about this month's featured viewer project which comes from roman giannik roman made this really amazing maze table which funny enough he's calling the amazing table he designed it while taking a furniture design class and it utilizes an arduino and a couple stepper motors to make the maze move sure beats the little wooden mazes i remember playing with as a kid so if you want to see more pictures and read more about this piece go check out our website which we'll link to in the description we're going to be featuring a new project each month and we're happy to be using squarespace to help us build a website both chris and i have been using squarespace to build and maintain our websites for years now and honestly it's one of the best choices we made when starting our businesses at the time i had no idea what i needed to do to build a website but squarespace makes it super easy to get up and running with plenty of professional looking templates to choose from as well as making things like purchasing domains really simple squarespace also has plenty of ecommerce tools to help you grow your business things like inventory management a simple and secure checkout process and unlimited products allow us to easily manage online transactions and not get bogged down with mundane tasks so that we can devote more time to doing the things we enjoy like making lounge chairs or a crazy maze table so if you're thinking about starting a website or even if you already have one go check out squarespace to see if it might be a better option for you head over to squarespace.com 4i's for a free trial then when you're ready to launch use the offer code 4i's to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain alright thanks squarespace and if you want to have one of your projects featured as well check out the link in the description for more details before i glue that up i then go to work on my seat to leg joinery so i first place my legs onto the seat assembly and get them where i like this really comes down to personal preference and you can really place the seat wherever you want but once it's in place i can start to mark out my joinery this process is a little tricky as some of the mortises have to be cut in freehand but it really just comes down to marking everything out accurately i go over all of this in extensive detail in the plans because this is definitely the trickiest part of the build so after everything is marked up i can cut in the mortises i use two in each of the front leg joints and three in the rear leg joints and if i've done everything properly it should all line up [Music] before the final glue up there are just a couple things left to do i need to finish off the final edge details so i put the last couple of round overs on the top edge of the seat back and the front edge of the seat bottom i also added a thumbnail profile to both the seat side parts and the legs and i do this with a large round over bit that isn't lowered all the way to take a full cut so when done from both sides of the part you end up with a rounded edge profile while still maintaining a crisp straight line which i think looks really good after a bit of sanding especially in those hard to reach spots i can finally glue up the entire chair so i first start by gluing up the seat assembly and the seat sides then once that's dry i can glue the legs to the entire seat assembly [Music] and after that it's just some final sanding adding some finish and this one's pretty much done the last little addition is some cushions which this chair is really designed to have for this one we had a local guy make them and they look great [Music] all right hang with me for just a second i'm gonna get a little sentimental i have to say it's a little bittersweet making this chair on one hand i'm happy to bring it back and offer the design to hopefully even more people and give it the in-depth set of plans that it really deserves but at the same time it kind of feels like i'm saying goodbye to it i named this chair after john glenn the first american astronaut to orbit the earth and now with the amount of people that have built this chair over the last couple years in its own way it's kind of made its own orbit and i'm truly thankful to everyone that's watched our videos sent us an email or a message supported us by buying our plans and building our designs i'm truly thankful it's a crazy feeling knowing there are a whole bunch of these chairs out there and hopefully a whole bunch more to come and even though this might be the last one that i ever make it doesn't feel quite so bad when i know it's gonna live on with all of you now so one last time for me and glenn if you ever decide to make this chair y'all done yeah yeah i'm done you

Channel: Chris Salomone

Views: 240,516

Rating: 4.9483871 out of 5

Keywords: Woodworking, woodwork, wood working, DIY, how to, modern furniture, furniture design, How to build a table, DIY Table, Mid Century Modern, Modern Furniture Project, Woodworking Project, DIY Woodworking, woodworking plans, DIY woodworking, rocking chair, modern chair, how to build a chair, modern rocking chair, lounge chair, how to build a lounge chair, modern lounge chair

Id: hUxKDFle5pQ

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021