{"id":3607,"date":"2023-06-07T15:09:29","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T22:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=3607"},"modified":"2023-11-15T12:58:57","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T20:58:57","slug":"adirondack-chairs-delivered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=3607","title":{"rendered":"Adirondack chairs \u2013 delivered!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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You can read the previous chapter of this story here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late last year I decided to make a couple of Adirondack chairs for our upstairs balcony. These were designed to replace two chairs that we bought at a garden store. Those chairs, while quite nice, succumbed to the elements and finally fell apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was determined to replace them with similar chairs made of a beautiful natural wood. After some deliberation, I chose Monterey Cypress custom milled at Pacific Coast Lumber in Paso Robles. The wood was cut for me, then kiln-dried for a month, and I took delivery in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here are the new Adirondack chairs on the upstairs balcony of our home. It is a gloomy day, but they still look nice. It only took about six months to make them. The finish is Varathane water-based acrylic varnish. I love the effect is has on the Cypress, bringing out the honey color in the wood.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I took the lumber to my shop where I let it acclimatize for a couple of weeks before planing it and finish-sanding it to two thicknesses for the chairs: 3\/4 inch and 5\/8 inch. The thicker boards are for the load-bearing parts while the thinner boards are for the seat boards and staves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wood came from a tree that fell in Morro Bay State Park during a storm. I like that provenance, as I have obtained other locally-milled lumber from nearby Cambria and from a tree that fell on a highway east my city. There would be a story here: storm-damaged tree converted to elegant outdoor furniture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with this lumber was more difficult than the romantic picture that I had painted. From the moment I began planing, the lumber\u2019s internal demons began to escape, causing long (and sometimes loud) cracks to appear. While resting one day during the sanding operation I heard a loud crack come from my stack of 5\/8 inch lumber. This would not be the last such crack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the process of gluing the neck board to the vertical staves, the very last piece to be added to the chairs. I have a motto that says you can never have too many clamps! Variety counts, too. Here I am using four large Jorgensen clamps and five Rockwell narrow clamps to hold the staves to the board while the glue dried. For anything like this I use Gorilla Glue, because it is the only truly waterproof glue that I know.
The neck board was surprisingly difficult to make and attach. I cut it on the CNC machine then fit it by sanding it on the spindle sander. Then I broke three of them, and made them over and over until I finally succeeded.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I cut all the pieces (covered in previous episodes of this story), and then reduced them to final size both on my table saw and on the CNC machine where necessary. I did some manual cutting on my band saw (where a curve also had a sharp internal angle). Then I followed that with a lot of hand sanding and preparation for assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost every day when I was working on this project I was faced with another debilitating crack. These would open up in boards as I screwed them to the frame, or they would open up overnight while glue was drying. This week I had a problem with the final board not fitting the vertical staves correctly. I changed my design, then made a new piece on the CNC machine, and while sanding it, I dropped it to the floor. It shattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I made another one and tried again. That one cracked and broke in half while being clamped in place. So I made yet another one that I was successful in mounting to the back of the chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While doing my final sanding, I noticed that a crack had opened up on one of the vertical legs of one chair. Since this is structurally critical, I disassembled the arm and brace, and glued-up the crack with Gorilla Glue (waterproof). I let it dry overnight, then sanded it and reassembled the arm to continue my work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I finally finished sanding the chairs, making them ready for a spray coating of clear acrylic, I stood back to admire my work. CRACK! I heard it, but I can\u2019t find it, so I decided to move ahead and get the first coat of acrylic on the chairs. Perhaps the acrylic coating will hold the wood together!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chairs have a wonderful color when coated. I call it light honey. I completed the first coat yesterday, and the second coat today. After a day to dry, I will do a light sanding and put another very light coat on top, finishing (?) the project. Then I will deliver the chairs from the shop to the house and my wife and I can sit on them in the evening as the sun sets over Cerro San Luis Obispo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The epitaph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I do it again? Absolutely. I will almost certainly make more Adirondack chairs. These are my sixth and seventh, and I really like the design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I use Monterey Cypress again? No. I think it\u2019s lovely wood, and I am sorry that my relationship with it has been so troubled. I think it\u2019s too brittle for this kind of project. I am very happy with the overall appearance of the chairs. They are very nice. But I fear that the cracking is not over\u2026 I have recurring dreams about sitting in my chair on the balcony and having a crack streak up one of the rear staves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, this wood was quite expensive compared to other woods available at my local hardwood store. I could probably have made these chairs out of Hard Rock Maple and spent less money on the raw lumber (and it would have cracked less).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What wood should I use next time? In my Adirondack chair adventures I have used Monterey Pine, Baltic plywood (a prototype), red Oak, and now Monterey Cypress. I might try Birch on my next chair, or perhaps Poplar (I have read mixed reviews about Poplar). Birch is hard to get right now, but I can probably find some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I build them the same way? Yes, but I will make small changes to the design to get the vertical staves to fit better. That would make them easier to assemble and complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I spend the better part of six months building them? Who knows?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, I have started a new project! It\u2019s a custom utility trailer that will carry a military surplus 5KW generator to Burning Man. It\u2019s my first trailer, and it will be made entirely of steel. Since I am not a welder, I\u2019m having the best welder I know make the trailer for me. It involves fabrication, assembly, powder-coating, licensing, testing and ultimately the installation of high voltage electrical circuits to provide power to the Pinhole Project camp at Burning Man 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More on this as it is built.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can read the previous chapter of this story here. Late last year I decided to make a couple of Adirondack chairs for our upstairs balcony. These were designed to replace two chairs that we bought at a garden store. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[960,963],"tags":[411,63,64,965,966,412],"class_list":["post-3607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-building-things","category-woodworking","tag-adirondack-chair","tag-blognosticator","tag-brian-lawler","tag-cypress","tag-varathane-finish","tag-woodworking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3607"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3743,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions\/3743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}