making a chair/step ladder

[johnnyb]

I thought I'd document how I went about making this chair stepstool.
I eventually want to make this in decent hardwood but for the first one I had a run through in pine. the original design details were taken from an old ( 20s or 30s) sized illustration. this was intended to be in wide single slabs of 7/8 wood. Once I'd made a full size drawing it dawned that I didn't have enough of any species that wide and I decided to to joint up the triangles which would also make the chair lighter.

 

[johnnyb]

here's the drawing

 

[johnnyb]

I started by finding the bits with mortices as these could just be copied from the rod. I thought about buying some par from the Woodward but I then realised jointing meant I only needed narrow bits and I had several boarded doors I'd aquired from doing replacements. as it turned out this was great wood being stable and 22mm thick. I unscrewed and denailed them and this resulted in a pile of 22mm t and g and a smaller pile of 25mm battens.
redwood is a great choice being light and strong.

 

[johnnyb]

I then put 25mm tenons on the 90 degree sections and established where everything landed on the rod.

 

[johnnyb]

the angled sections I will domino as they don't seem structural like the back leg cross rail joint or the front leg. the steps themselves also act as stretchers if there well attached.

 

[johnnyb]

just to comment on the construction of the boarded doors I disassembled. I felt that was a really good and modern method of construction. it was screws in the end of the battens into the end 1/2 boards. screws into the cross braces(4) but before that glue onto the back of the battens. and nails from the front. the glue despite being cross grain was pva and extremely well adhered. so much I had to run that face through the thicknesser. the house was from the late eighties so these doors had lasted 33years at least. no doubt the glue was resin w

 

[Jameshow]

Lovely!
No time for lunch!
We need more pictures!

 

[John Brown]

Is it to be a Benjamin Franklin type library step chair?

 

[johnnyb]

I'm guessing so( I was unaware of Benjamin's involvement tbh) I'll try and get a screenshot of the simple plans probably from an early woodworker. my intention is to try and work on the basic design(in nicer wood i wont say better)unless it's good in painted red deal. kids not back til Wednesday so today was rowing on Rudyard lake.

 

[johnnyb]

I think the unjointed design(it's original form) basically a few big slabs instead of a load of joints has the most going for it if you have gorgeous wood that wide. I had an odd commission for a positive pressure vent it was a 500 by 750 sheet of oak veneer mdf with seemingly random holes of various sizes. that may help to lighten that slab without weakening to much.

 

[johnnyb]

another reason for knocking a cheap one up is so I can picture how I can change the shapes to try and make it not better but more attractive esp the chair part. steps is steps I reckon.

 

[John Brown]

I have one in elm(I think). I was planning on building one 15 yrs ago or so, when I found one on eBay. £25 and miles better than I could make.
Anyway, I shall follow your build with interest.

 

[johnnyb]

https://pin.it/7hBxW98here's the original link

 

[TRITON]

Saw an interesting take designed for kitchens. Screenshotted a few pics.

 

[johnnyb]

I carried on with this today by dominoing the angled bits and finally gluing up the side frames.

 

[johnnyb]

I'd glued a few bits of 25mm stock up to make the folding steps I had to edge some 2 inch onto ply to make the wider bottom step look similar to the folded second step. the third step looked unlikely to be used in my situation so I may leave it out and push the bottom step out. just put the brace at the top.

 

[johnnyb]

morticing the hinges was a challenge because they need to be sunk as far below the surface as possible otherwise they catch your bum in chair mode! the sinking of the hinges is really critical so slowly slowly catchee monkey. and just try to creep up on a fit. the fit of the chair back and seat front required some fiddling to close sweetly mostly by tapering the top of the front legs. this maybe should have been ironed out before as should plenty other things but when using scrap and whatevers to hand some improv is inevitable.

 

[johnnyb]

I love how everything in pine feels like a student project? it's the sort of project that a factory would knock out for £50 in rubberwood but its a decent challenge to make.

 

[johnnyb]

next is the chair back

 

[gregmcateer]

enjoying this thread. Thanks for sharing it, jb