This chair from the summer of 2020 is only incidentally an adirondack. The starting ingredients were few: five free days, a miter saw, a hammer, and a drill. I had three objectives in mind: create the simplest outdoor chair possible, overbuild it to prevent wobble, and include a reclining back. So, for perhaps the first time in my life, I decided that aesthetics would not just be subordinated, but completely ignored in the service of functional requirements. (Yes, this would be the project to reserve my special place in hell.)
Of course, my plan quickly fell apart. The axle supporting the reclining seat, which in my CAD model looked so simple, would need custom-cut sleeve bearings. Hole placement for the knobs required my TI-86 calculator and a purpose-built jig. And I couldn’t help myself - what would a 3D-printed knob be without an embossing of my apartment crest? Should armrest placement be more De Stijl or Morris?
Worst of all, my plan to make the seat out of wound nylon rope ran aground due to the whopping price tag. So I borrowed a friend’s sewing machine and got to work stitching a heavy-duty canvas seat and backing. Unfortunately, the weatherproof canvas proved to not be weight-proof. Off it went to the trash, replaced with a weatherproof, ripstop, non-stretch nylon. After exhausting my repertoire of swears many times over, efforts to wrap the rungs in foam were abandoned.
After licking my wounds, I plan to build a matching footrest.