How to Build Adirondack Chairs || Rockler Adirondack Chair Template || How to Woodworking

what's going on everybody thanks for stopping by to check out another video in this week's video I'll show you how I built this set of Adirondack chairs using the Rockler templates you see here so I'll take you through the build process and give you a little preview of what the instructions and the template set includes in case you want to build this set of shares for yourself anyway let me know what you think of this video in the chairs in the comments and with all that said let's go ahead and get started so to make these chairs I am using the Rockler Adirondack chair plans now these plans come in either quarter inch MDF templates which is what I have here or you can buy the cardboard templates which will let you trace the shape of all of the pieces out however you will not be able to use the flush trim bit like I am with these MDF templates anyway with the templates you do get this set of plans which is actually very detailed and pretty impressive for a set of plans the plans do include a cut list which I blurred out in that previous shot just because these are Rockler planes rather than my plans but here is the lumber list you will need so if you want to build these chairs for yourselves feel free to take a screenshot of that material list and just a quick look at the rest of the plans like I mentioned earlier very detailed plans and pretty impressive for a paper set of plans it walks you through the entire build process and it is very easy to follow now the easiest way to build this set of chairs will be to buy the materials listed in those plans and follow the cuts to a t however I like to over complicate things and make it much more difficult on myself so rather than make it from the dimensional Lumber listed I'm going to be using the cedar two by sixes and while this doesn't follow the directions exactly it is the same basic process so you just need to break the pieces down and then match up the sizes with the templates so rather than following the directions Step A B C D and so forth I just cut out the bulk pieces and then match them one template at a time so you'll grab your first template and then find a piece of stock roughly the same size Trace that outline with a marker or a pencil and then you'll cut that out using either a bandsaw or a jigsaw and the band saw is one tool that my Arsenal is lacking so I opted for the jigsaw which worked out just fine [Applause] regardless of whether you're using a bandsaw or a jigsaw you'll want to cut as close to that line as possible without cutting into that line so when I put the template down you can see that it overlaps and there's just a tiny bit left over of excess we're going to cut this off with a flush cut trim bit and this is exactly what we want so we'll throw some double-sided tape on the piece and the template to stick it in place and before we get started with the flush cutting it is worth mentioning that if you don't have a router set up or you don't want to trim these with the flush cut trim bit you can definitely sand them down right to the line there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and it'll work perfectly [Music] so we tape our template down and then run that up against the flush cut trim bit the flush cut trim bit has a bearing at the top which will ride right against that template while the rest of the piece underneath gets cut by the actual blade itself all right once we pull that template back off you can see that we have a nice smooth profile cut out by that router bit which will match up to that template absolutely perfectly if you are using the dimensional Lumber listed in the instructions you will not run into this problem but since I was using these Cedar two by sixes I found that the armrest template was wider than the stock I was using so rather than panicking or having to go buy some more stock I just simply glued a couple pieces together [Music] so I gave the glue a few hours to dry while I was actually cutting out all of the other pieces ran it through the planer and then you can see that that piece was just the right size for that armrest [Applause] I wouldn't consider using the flush cut trim bit on the router table a difficult process but it is extremely important that you understand the necessity of cutting into the router bit rather than with the router bit if you happen to go in the wrong direction that is a huge Kickback risk so if you're not familiar with the router table be sure to take some time and learn to understand how the router table works you don't want to mess around with Kickback whenever you're flush cutting on a router table [Music] moving on we are looking at the backrest pieces of the chairs so these will be made out of three quarter inch stock however again because I was using those bigger cedar boards I had to Mill up my own stock to three quarter inches and these are the templates that will be used for the back pieces of this chair so these templates have a slight taper on one side you can see they're just over two inches wide on the bottom and then about two and a half inches on the top so we could do the exact same thing where we cut out the outside trim line with a jigsaw and then take it over to the router table but I wanted to demonstrate a way to do this differently so all of the back support pieces on this chair are tapered at the same exact angle which is a perfect opportunity for us to use this Rockler taper jig to cut that tapered angle off so we put the template down on the tapered jig matching it up with the outside profile right along the blade and then the fence can be adjusted to make that angled cut now again you don't have to do this with this jig this is just a faster way to avoid cutting those outside edges with the jigsaw you will need seven of these back support pieces and the templates are the same profile on each side so you can just flip those over and trace the outline of the curve at the top it's pretty obvious to see here that I used the wrong template on one of the boards so we'll quickly fix that with the proper template and then it's easy to check yourself and make sure that you have all the pieces marked right as you can see a nice gentle curve across the top of each of the boards foreign s of these pieces will need cut out and then trimmed on the router table like we've done with the other pieces and now is a good time to mention that if you are interested in this set of plans or any of the tools or products that you see in this video you can check out the description where I have a direct link to all of the products also if you do grab the plans and templates from Rockler be sure to specify whether you want the MDF templates or just the cardboard cutout plans I think the cardboard cutout planes are only twenty dollars and the templates are forty five dollars and while the templates are a bit more expensive they are a hundred percent worth the price in my opinion having these templates and plans made this build go very smoothly and very easy so at this point in the video hopefully we understand how the templates are used to cut out some of the shapes now unless I miss them somewhere a couple of the pieces you'll need don't actually have templates and that is because these pieces are just regular shaped stock so they're rectangular with no curves that way you can just easily cut them out with the table saw the miter saw or the cross cut sled like I'm doing here these pieces that you see will be the leg supports and the internal brace supports that go on the legs there are a few more pieces that will have curves so these are the back support pieces which will hold the back slats in place and again I want to just explain that my process for cutting all of these pieces out is to just find one template and then cut them out one at a time so I'm not actually following the directions I'm just grabbing the templates seeing how many pieces I need and then cutting them out with what stock I have all right [Music] so we are almost at the point in the video where I have all the pieces cut out however I needed to Mill up some more lumber for the seat slats that would go across this is another piece that you don't get templates for but these are just very easy to cut out if you are considering building these chairs for yourselves I would highly recommend just buying three quarter inch stock rather than trying to Mill everything up like I am buying the stock cutout list listed in the instructions will save you a ton of time opposed to what I am doing but if you already have larger stocks such as I do in this video it'll work out just fine as well the final thing we need to do before assembling all of these pieces is to trim all of the edges highlighted in blue in the instruction manual with a quarter inch round over bit to soften up the profile and the edge of all the pieces it would likely be more efficient to do this on the router table but since we've been using the router table for most of the videos so far I decided to switch it up and just use my palm router for this step so we are finally at the assembly part of the chairs and a quick look at the instructions we'll explain exactly what you need to do that being first starting out with connecting the bottom leg supports with the back stretcher I'm just using the extra slots to make sure everything is squared up and one really cool thing about the templates is that they have pre-drilled holes to show you where the screws are supposed to go on each of the pieces now the back of these leg supports have a nice sloping curve but on the front that you can see they have these ridges and those ridges are where the slats will go across the front side of this chair and you don't get templates to Mark where these holes will go but you will want to pre-drill everything as these screws are pretty close to the outside in which makes them prone to splitting if you just drive a screw through them so back to these rectangular leg supports we looked at earlier and you can see that one of these pieces will need to be cut at an angle so again this is another piece that you do not get templates for however in the instruction manual there is a square template drawing that includes the dimensions of this piece so you're able to take that and just measure to transfer a line onto the piece you have then you can cut that out however you want I'm using the cross cut sled although it would probably be quicker just to use the miter saw once these pieces are cut out you can attach them to the main leg support with screws and one thing you'll notice is the orientation of the angle so you want to have the angles opposite of each other not facing the same way so I had them backwards at first but then I flipped them over properly that's because these leg pieces will be on the opposite sides of the chair so we need the angle to be mirrored if we looked at it from the inside foreign the simplest way to attach the legs to the interior support of this chair frame is going to be to lay everything on its side once again we will use the templates to pre-drill where the holes go on the frame piece and then there is a measurement from the outside of that leg to the front of the chair which is included in the instructions and after everything is lined up in place we can simply use screws to attach those legs foreign with the front legs on we need to focus our attention to the back support side of the chair there will be two back support pieces and then another Runner which will support the back Slots of the chair so we'll once again use the templates to pre-drill everything turn the frame of the chair on its side and then those can be put in place there is another measurement from the back side of the chair just like there was on the front and the instructions say that these are supposed to be put at a 70 degree angle but I don't have a protractor or any way to measure that angle so I just take one of the templates and line it up with the bottom piece of the back support and again using screws everything is secured in place foreign at this point in the build all of the pieces are finally starting to come together to resemble something of a chair but to put the armrest in place we'll first need to attach these support brackets and these brackets are another piece that you do not get templates with so let me show you quickly how I made these just from some extra stock the first rip and then I'll end up using the cross cut sled to cut these at an angle you may find it easier to just use the miter saw for this rather than the cross cut sled and if cutting that final angle on the side of each of these is a little too close for comfort you could always leave them just as a rectangular black as well the problem with cutting this steep angle on the Crosscut sled or the table saw is that the angle is actually too steep for the cross cut sled to handle so a quick tip that you may not have seen before is just to cut an extra block at a 45 degree angle and then we can use that as the fence to make that Final Cut even with a saw stop this piece is far too small to hold in place using just your fingers so grab another board and put on top of that that way your fingers can stay a little further away from the blade when you make this cut so the bigger front piece is first attached and we'll put the back piece on a little later in the video but for now let's focus our attention on the back slats of the chair after using the templates to pre-drill the holes in the slats we'll need to find the exact center of the back top and bottom stretchers that way we can start off with the center piece and line it up directly in the middle of the chair the instructions call for a 3 8 inch space between the slats and using this set of spacer blocks makes the Gap very easy to measure although if you don't have these spacer blocks you could always just measure the Gap out as well after those back slats are attached in place we can move forward to the seat slats each of these slats will be put in place just like those first two slats we did at the beginning of the assembly process whenever you're putting these slats in place it may help to elevate the back of the chair so just throw a scrap two by four or whatever you have back in place and then rather than measuring the spacing out on each of the slides I just eyeballed equal spacing the best I could and then they can be secured in place with the screws the reason that I didn't put that back arm support in place earlier is because I wanted to make sure that I could get it level if it's too low or too high then that armrest would set at an angle so we measure equal spacing from the inside of the chair on each one of those armrests and then they can be secured in place with screws just like all of the other pieces of this chair at this point the Assembly of the chair is finished you can sand each one of these down as much or as little as you like probably wouldn't easier to sand the pieces before they were assembled but I sanded everything down briefly and then I am clear coating these with Thompson's water seal didn't do a ton of research on what type of clear coat to use so if you have recommendations for Cedar be sure to drop those in the comments but this Thompson's water seal really made the color of the cedar pop and I think the chairs looked great so I let the clear coat dry for maybe a week or so and then I took these chairs outside to give them the old sitting test and what do you know they didn't collapse meaning that this chair build was a successful chair build and these chairs are actually really comfortable so that will wrap this video up here are a couple Final Shots of how the chairs turned out I think the cedar looks great as a feature of these chairs and I had a lot of fun during this build so I hope you enjoyed the video drop a comment down below and let me know what you think of these chairs as always thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Matt Montavon (MMCC_Woodshop)

Views: 30,510

Keywords: adirondack chair, how to build an adirondack chair, outdoor furniture, adirondack chair plan, woodworking plans, diy adirondack chair, adirondack chair kits, adirondack furniture, how to, patio furniture, how to make outdoor furniture, western red cedar, ultimate adirondack chair, adirondack chair build, outdoor furniture paint, outdoor furniture with pallets, adirondack chair ana white, outdoor furniture build, outdoor furniture covers, outdoor furniture ideas

Id: ojjb1XqiOMI

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 03 2023