New Yankee Workshop - S14E12 - Deck Chair

most challenging project that you ever built one of them would have to be this legends bench now it's been out here for about eight years and every time i walk by it i'm glad i built it well now we have another challenge we're going to build a deck chair made out of teak with solid brass hardware for inspiration we took a short cruise on the qe2 now this is what i call a cruise ship we're on board the qe2 which is the flagship of the cunard line now we're here to experience what life might be like on a ship like this and more specifically what life is like up on the deck and in these steamer chairs which have been around for over a hundred years and the design hasn't changed that much made out of teak to deal with the harsh marine environment the hardware is brass again to deal with that salt air and boy are they comfortable you can lie back and get a tan or you can raise the back to be comfortable to read a book they are great good morning sir do you want something to drink yes please thank you very much boy it's going to be tough but i guess i have to go back to the workshop and build one of these ah this is great the salt air the sunshine and nothing to do but catch up on my reading all the way to sherbert just kidding of course but i wanted to put you in the mood to appreciate the new yankee version of that classic the deck chair let me talk about some of the features made out of solid teak with solid brass fittings it's very comfortable gracefully curved armrests that are wider than most that i had seen so there's plenty of room for your elbows as you read your favorite book now it has a footrest which can be used in this position or drop down like that it's also fully reclining so you can push that way back when you're ready for a nap and when you want to store it it folds up into a fairly compact package that you can just lean up against the wall now i'm going to tell you up front this is a time consuming project there are only a handful of straight parts everything else is curved now the first thing that i had to do was design the chair so i looked at websites i even found some pictures of original titanic chairs and with that inspiration i lofted a drawing onto this huge piece of cardboard and you can see that it's well used i would draw some lines either bending a stick of wood or with a french curve didn't seem quite right i'd erase it make another version i was working on all these pivot points i wanted to make sure that it would recline properly and that it would actually fold up when i was done building it now once i had the drawing and i was happy with it then i was ready to make some parts the first parts that i made for the chair were all these plywood templates think of these as tools we'll be using them throughout the building of this chair what i did is i took tracing paper put it over the full-scale drawing trace the outline stuck the paper to some plywood and cut out all these pieces before we use any power tools let's talk about shop safety be sure to read understand and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury and remember this there is no more important safety rule than to wear these safety glasses now when i cut this out i'm just going to leave the line i'm smoothing out the template and bringing it right to the line using my oscillating spindle sander now you could get the same result with a drum in a drill press or a bench top model but this is really the ideal tool for curved shapes if you did it by hand it would take a [Music] while now with a 3 8 inch bit i'm drilling a hole which will actually be a pivot point later and where this window is outlined i'm going to drill a hole in each corner and clean out the remainder with my jigsaw now and only now do we touch the teak it's the right choice for this chair because it's strong and it's weather resistant and it must come from a managed certified forest otherwise we're going to deplete an important natural resource i take the template that we just constructed lay it out and it's off to the bandsaw now here i'm going to stay about 16 away from the line now the idea is to secure the template to the teak i'm going to start by putting one brad near this opening now a 3 8 inch through hole and i'll secure that with a short piece of dowel before i drill the next one because i don't want it to move around next step is to make the teak flush with the template to do that i'm going to use this flush cutting bit as a ball bearing which rides against the template once i make a pass around the edge this part will require no further sanding [Applause] okay there we have it a perfect match now this is going to become a right hand leg this front leg next i have to make a mortise on the inside of the leg to pick up this stretcher this is where that window that i cut in the template comes in handy i'm going to use a 5 8 inch collar and a 3 8 inch straight cutting bit i've set the depth to account for a half inch of the thickness of the template and a three-quarter inch deep mortise that collar just follows the inside of the window now i can pop out the dowels take off the template and use this corner chisel to square up the mortise okay there's one leg here's the other one that i made earlier it's a mirror image to accomplish that i simply flip the pattern over the next piece to make is the backrest support here's one that i made earlier for the left side the right side has been rough cut the template is attached i'm ready to route it smooth all right we're making some progress now after smoothing the edges of the backrest support i routed out a mortise to match the one on the other side the next piece to work on is the back leg now here's the one that i made yesterday and here's the one i've made for the other side so far i've cut it made the mortise down here now the mortise that remains is this one up here if i were to take this jig that i used to cut the shape and make a window for the mortise i'd only have an eighth of an inch left here that's not strong enough so using this i traced it once again with extra material at the top i can drop that over the piece clamp it in place and route it out now it's time to make some slats there are back rest slats there are seat slats and there are foot rest slats they're all formed the same way they have different curves here's a seat slat it's got a tenon on each end and a nice gentle curve for all the slats i start out with inch and a half thick teak which is the width of the slat i take my template set it near the edge and mark this outer edge and the ends and we'll cut it at the bandsaw once again i'll leave a sixteenth of an inch now i nail the pattern to the blank keeping the pencil line showing and now we can route it [Music] with that edge smooth i flip it back over trace the other side of the slat pop it off take it over to the bandsaw and cut it leaving a sixteenth of an inch i'm not going to smooth the other side of this slat with the router like i did with the other parts and the reason for that is if i were to put the router on this piece which is very narrow it would be impossible to keep it stable it's going to want to rock and it won't give me a very good result so i've devised another method i'm going to use the oscillating spindle sander i've installed this squeeze block the end of it's curved and there's a center point the distance between the center point and the drum is the thickness of the slat that i want i'll take the routed edge of the slat which is nice and smooth and run that against the squeeze block as long as i keep the routed edge and this point in contact i'll get a nice uniform and smooth slat now i'm ready to cut the slat to length here's my layout line from the template and if you look carefully you can see that it's angling away from the saw blade so if i adjust by eye the angle till it looks parallel lock it down that looks pretty good now i'll cut it right at the line [Music] now i can flip it around and do the same thing on the other end it takes a while but be patient and you'll end up with enough slats for the foot rest the seat and the back rest now we need some rails to which we hang the slats from here's the back seat rail and the front seat rail i've laid out the mortises which will receive the tenons will form later to make the mortises i'm going to use my dedicated mortiser which is set up with a 3 8 inch chisel and i've set the fence to locate the mortise in just the right place okay there's one rail now we'll do the other one with the same process well that takes care of the mortises and the rails for the seat as well as the foot rest rails now i want to turn my attention to the back rest there's a lower rail that's curved and has a tenon at each end that fits into these supports and this top rail is called the crest rail i made a template from the plan it matches the curve of the crest rail and the lower rail i've laid out all the mortises for the slats as well as these dark areas which are the tenons on that lower rail i picked out some two inch thick stock traced the outline located all the mortises and picked another piece a little bit shorter for the lower rail and did the same thing now i can drill out the mortises the center mortise is easy because it's parallel to the blank of wood so all i have to do is set it against the fence and i can make the cuts that's perfect now as i move to the outer edge the mortise layout follows the curve and you can see it's not parallel to the chisel i have to kick it out and here's where i find that wedges left over from previous projects will come in handy i can wedge it until i get it to line up parallel with the chisel or close then i can move the fence back and when i get it just right i'll machine the mortise i'm beginning to form the tenon on the end of the lower curved rail and if you look at the layout on the top you can see that the tenon is not centered on the blank it's offset to follow the curve so i'll nibble away the top and the bottom first then i'll reset the saw first to do this then to do this [Music] okay that's good now i can cut both sides of the curve here at the band saw and then i'll smooth it up at the spindle sander i can free hand one side now i can put it through this squeeze block to make it uniform in thickness it's the same procedure for the crest rail [Music] good morning for the last couple hours i've been forming tenons on our slats even though the shape of the slats are all different the principles by which the tenons are formed are the same now the first thing i want to do is make the shoulder cuts on each side of the slats i've set up a stack dado cutter and a stop block i'm using my long miter gauge now here's what the issue is just as when i cut the slats to length i want the end to be square i want the tenon to be square if i slide it in here there's a very tiny gap i want to get rid of that so i have to swing the gauge around until there's no gap then i can push it through and make the first cut okay now we're ready to start the cheek cuts so i've raised my dado and i've made a test the issue now is that i want to have the slat be square to the gauge block which it is as long as the miter gauge is set at zero but i also want it to be flush in this vertical plane and there's a very slight gap there but i have to get rid of it if i want an accurate tenon i found that for these particular slats if i took a piece of plywood added a quarter inch shim to this end that would raise the far end of the slat and the gap goes away okay now for the other end a slightly different situation i need to close the gap again and this time i just took a couple pieces of quarter inch plywood made a little step that i can clamp onto the miter gauge and that took care of the gap now i'm ready to make the other cheek cut but i can't use the table saw in order to get the tenon flush i have to bring it way up here and that's beyond the capacity of the dado i certainly could have formed both of the cheek cuts at the bandsaw but the more i can do with the table saw the more accurate the tenon will be to complete the tenon i've set up a fence on the bandsaw i've set the distance to make the shoulder cut for the last cheek i've put a pencil mark to determine the depth of the cut and by using my small miter gauge and making sure that the end of the tenon is flush i'm ready to make the shoulder cut now i've relocated the fence i cut a notch in the end of the fence which becomes a guide to make the final cheek cut and it has a stop so that i don't go too far now it's just a matter of easing the edges on all the slats with a five thirty seconds round over bit and i like to group them together gives me more support for the router for the last several minutes while the dado is still in the saw i've been forming tenons on the stretchers and the front seat rail now here i'm cutting a wedge out of the back seat rail so it'll fit over the back leg okay here's where that rail is going to go it fits over the leg makes it flat with the slat now we're ready to glue up the seat slats and the footrest slats this teak is a bit oily so before i apply any glue i clean all the joints with acetone for glue i'm just using a weatherproof carpenter's glue it's the same glue i used on that legends bench we saw earlier it holds up great i'll just slip everything together and we'll clamp it up now i've turned my attention to the backrest assembly it's dry fitted together no glue now because the crest rail is curved i need to scribe this support piece so that it fits better so with a divider i can mark it out and then i'll use a sharp chisel to remove the material originally you saw me drill the holes in these pieces at a 3 8 inch diameter so i could use standard 3 8 dowels to hold the jigs in place now i have to enlarge the hole to 13 30 seconds for the hardware that's going to go through them here i'm using marine adhesive sealant for a stronger joint and up here where the crest rail meets the backrest support a brass screw will give it some more strength using my little trim saw and some other tools i'm making a slot in each of the front legs to receive this bit of hardware for the last several minutes i've been working on the remaining arm i laid it out using this template and i want to keep this waist piece for the time being so i have a flat spot to rest it on the band saw as i make this cut to make the arm narrower at the back here i'm using a forstner bit to mortise out for the hardware now i'll complete the mortise using a smaller forstner bit with the seat assembly out of the clamps i sanded it and then rounded over a little bit of the edges i've applied marine adhesive to all the joints i'm going to clamp it and install a few screws a little more of that marine adhesive on the stretcher for the front legs and we'll clamp them up and finally the stretcher for the foot rest assembly and you'll note that i've glued the cap nuts in with some epoxy to give them plenty of time to dry a clamp on this and all the glue ups are completed we'll let these sit overnight and tomorrow it's just a matter of hardware well good morning today's the day we finish assembling our deck chair now should you decide to build the chair the plans will tell you where to get the hardware package when you get it find this piece right here it's a stopper that connects the front leg to the back leg there's a pair a left and a right and what you do is you slip that between the two legs then you're going to have a piece of this heavy wall brass tubing and that acts as a sleeve and what i want to do is slide it through the leg through the hardware and through the hole on the back leg next you take one of these cap nuts put in a piece of threaded brass rod slide that through the sleeve and then put another cap nut on the other end then you take a pair of allen wrenches and tighten up the whole assembly the next piece of hardware that you want to look for is this one it's called a pawl it slips into the groove that we cut in the top of the front leg i have a cap nut a piece of threaded rod and another cap nut that goes through this way no sleeve now this is a little tricky i'm going to drill a hole through here for another piece of threaded rod and i want it to be straight and square i'll go through most of the way from this side and then finish it from the other side so i don't get tear out good that takes care of that let's put the arms on next again with a spacer next i secure this ratchet to the top of the pawl with the pin then bring down the arm rest and slip it into the mortise that we made on the underside of the arm now over here on the other side you can see the holes that i pre-drilled and therefore these heavy screws which pass through the hardware and secure it now for the foot rest assembly i've drilled a hole in the center of the pivoting rail about a quarter of an inch deep now i can use a piece of tubing to hold it in place as i bring the drill bit through the leg and into that shallow hole and now i'll drill it to the correct depth now i just tap the tube in make sure it's bottomed out and i've taken a plug of teak put a bunch of marine adhesive on the end of it and i'll tap that in that'll lock everything in place now for the footrest legs you might recall earlier that i epoxied the cap nut on the inside of the leg and that's because once i get it in here i won't be able to slide the allen wrench in another tube and some more threaded rod and that'll do it every place there's a hole i'll glue in a bung trim it and sand it and finally a place to slip in a card with your name on it so no one poaches your chair i wonder who russ is now we told you this was a challenging project but boy isn't it worth it now all i need is a luxury liner and a good book to the new yankee workshop today we're going to build a step back cupboard you know sort of a hutch a place to store and display your fine dinnerware or other decorative objects it's very difficult to find a good one and once you do they're expensive so be ready for sticker shock not long ago we found a beauty not far from here in an antique shop so i measured it up and we're gonna build it right here today in the new yankee workshop [Music] it wouldn't be the new yankee workshop if we didn't pay a visit once in a while to the island of nantucket we're on washington street just a few steps from town out there part of the harbor next door brent point marine where you can buy your lobster pot and next to that the shellfish warden where you can get a very expensive shellfish license now across the street our old friends leonard's antiques they have a shop that's filled with antiques and reproductions there's a pine hutch in there that i want to show you i think it would be just right for us

Channel: Alex Alex

Views: 5,923

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: KDgAcyyozNU

Length: 23min 59sec (1439 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020