Folding Adirondack Chair
This classic outdoor chair is easy to build from any suitable 3/4" and 1 1⁄2" exterior project wood. I made mine from some beautiful mahogany sourced from Steve Wall Lumber (walllumber.com). But, what sets mine apart from countless other Adirondack chair designs is that, by loosening four knobs, you can fold it flat for transport or convenient off-season storage!
When I originally designed a working prototype for this chair — a must in order to figure out the many details that make it both comfortable and articulating correctly — I had the benefit of being able to simply trace the shaped parts from the prototype onto my final workpieces. Rockler is working on a complete plan that provides cardboard templates for the shaped parts — you can pre-order it starting at the end of February. There also will be a hardware kit that includes all the screws, bolts, nuts and knobs you’ll need to make one chair. While the plan and templates will be convenient, you can also make the chair by reproducing the shaped parts using our gridded drawings (see page 36) and buying the hardware locally instead.
Making the Back Legs
We’ll start the building process with the seat assembly, so cut two 5" x 36" blanks for the back legs from 1 1⁄2"-thick stock. Draw a grid of 1" squares on one of the leg blanks, then follow the gridded drawing on page 36 to plot points for the back leg shape. Connect the points to draw the first leg.
Follow your layout line to carefully cut out the leg on a band saw or with a jigsaw, and sand the cut edges flat and smooth. Now trace the first leg onto the second leg blank and cut it
