Outdoor Chair

I made an outdoor chair, the first of 4 planned to match a wooden outdoor table from IKEA. I like modern furniture forms, so I patterned it after DWR’s Block Island Dining Chair, which is now out of production, but used to cost around $700 each. Ours was put together for much less than that. Overall, a productive exercise for my son, shown in the photos, to introduce him to woodworking.

I used all cedar wood, wooden dowels, wood glue and screws. I thought I needed a metal plate to reinforce the seat, but the dowels and screws turned out fine. Tools used were a miter saw, a pull saw and chisel for the dovetail cuts, an ice pick and mounted Dremel to make pilot holes, a bench vise to hold the lumber for drilling the dowel holes, wooden dowels, a drill driver and a countersink bit.

I used 2 sizes of cedar wood: 28 pieces of 3x1x8 ft lumber, and 1 piece of 4x1x8ft for the back & bottom supports.

A rough sketch was made, then lumber was cut to size. Then it's making the cuts for the dovetail joints using a pull saw. After that, cutting the 4x1 lumber for the reclining back & bottom supports, then sanding everything.

Pilot holes were punched in with an ice pick as guide. Then using a mounted Dremel, we drilled through the wood using a smaller bit than the screws to be used. These were done to avoid cracking the wood. Then we follow those with a countersink bit, so the screw heads would be flushed below the surface. Next, it's making holes for the dowels by mounting the wood into a bench vise. The dowels were then attached using wood glue. After that, it's attaching the slats to the back and bottom supports using screws and a drill driver. We don't drive the screws all the way in. After making sure, everything is square & level, we finish driving them in with a screwdriver. Then the main parts are assembled. To hide the screws, we used dowels again. We drive them about a quarter inch deeper, used a dowel that's the same size as the screw head, glued it in, then cut flush to the surface with a pull saw.

Finally, we sand everything down, dusted off and cleaned everything, before painting over with 3 coats of exterior paint.