Luscious Lounger

My wife occasionally has expensive tastes...so walking around a garden centre her magpie senses kick in once she started seeing these lovely teak garden loungers. Also with a 'lovely' price tag!

But it got me thinking...so I designed and constructed a wooden lounger with adjustable back and leg support.

Main material was iroko T&G floor boards. All sourced from a factory skip of offcuts and bad grain.

Old aluminium tube from a push chair

Old fixings from other wooden garden furniture

Push chair wheels

Tools:

Band saw

drill with bits

hand plane

hand saw

squares

pinch sticks (see another of my Instructables)

clamps

screws

dowel (hand made - 8mm , iroko)

work bench

This was designed all though Autodesk Revit. Yes its mostly an architectural biased 3D software but majority of my 10 years working in Revit never really delt with architecture. I make 'families' in it and I love it, so why deviate from something that just fits.

Slight restrictions on the quantity of materials I had and the dimensions but that's what stimulates you to better creativity. If I had access and money to anything then I think in some ways you stop thinking around the problem.

1. I needed it to be mobile (to chase the sun around the garden)
2. To take the length and weight of a 6ft person upto around 100kg or 3 people sitting on it.
3. Adjustable back
4. Adjustable leg support
5. I wanted the sides to cover the slat end grain, so they needed to be recessed.
6. There needed to be no weight on the wheels once in a flat position, so not stressing the axel.

It took some time as you need to try and get the right angles and consider slat widths and where everything aligns once flat or raised.

This is a 7 part construction:

1. The main frame - everything fixes to this
2. The back frame
3. The back frame adjustable support
4. The seat frame
5. The leg frame
6. The front wheeled legs
7. The rear legs

The iroko was not perfect...but it was free! Splits, holes, obstinate grain. Being floor boards I needed to remove the tongue & groove on both sides, so the band saw removed the majority and hand plane did the rest. This meant every slat was about 20x82mm wide maximum, but to keep a better depth of wood for the sides I didn't remove the 'groove'. Instead I used the cut off 'tongue' part and glued that into the groove as a filler. This was on the underside and visibly not seen but gave me an extra 10mm. Cleaned up, ready to go.

Chamfered edges and sanded down.

Overall the frame was 1880Lx640W.

The main frame is where every thing fixes to. Its a rectangular frame with a screw and dowel construction. There are 4 cross braces, 1 being a seat slat. This to make sure the side frame doesn't bow out.

It also has the slotted stops fixed to the inside for where the back frame support and the leg frame adjusts into.

The back frame is made from 2 pieces of wood that have brass fixtures on one end that attach to either side of the internal of the main frame. Back slats then fix to this.

The back frame support is made of 2 'P' shaped pieces that pivot off the back frame. This has a cross brace and 2 aluminium tubes that fit into the slotted side stops. This all folds inline with the back frame when placed flat. When the back frame pivots up to a sitting position the tubes then start to engage in one of the 4 slots.

Slats are screwed into the frame with dowel plugs. These are home made dowels also out of iroko and a chamfer is applied to them using a drill bit attachment.

The seat and leg frame are done in a similar way to the back frame. 2 pieces of wood this slats fixed between them. The seat fixes to the main frame (brass bolt system). The leg frame fixes to the seat frame. The seat frame utilizes a recycled brass plate that has a short rod welded to it. This rod then fits into the leg frame slotted stop so that the seat/leg system can be adjusted to an angle.

Fairly simple construction - 2 pieces glued together to increase thickness, cut in such a way so one half supports under the main frame and the other secures to the side.

This was designed as a vertical support long enough to sit flat on the floor with an offset wheel axel. Once the back of the lounger is lifted the wheels then engage with the floor and the 'foot' becomes free. Push chair wheels were salvaged but due to the axle construction, the centre section needed to be removed. This was replaced with an iroko block to support the axel bolt which ran through to the brace. The brace is a tenon fit with an access hole drilled to place the washer & nut fix.

Initially a cover plate was made to tidy the wheel up but this looked a little odd so was left off.

Once all assembled a coating of teak oil was applied. This is relatively thin but penetrates well. Iroko survives outside pretty well even without a protective coating but the oil 'popped' the colour. Time will age it to a more grey appearance.

Photos show various angles of the back frame and seat/leg frame.

As you can see even our dog enjoyed it!

On the whole this project worked out well, but in hindsight what would I have done differently....

1. check photos are in focus before moving on - lots of view points not captured....sorry
2. spacing between the slats are a fraction too wide. This was due to a compromise of maximizing the material width, the number of boards available and the overall dimensions.
3. Concerning the seat slats - I wish I had either used stainless steel screws (costly) or dowelled with glue. My thoughts were maintenance in the future but unfortunately the screws seem to be poor quality and rust is apparent. Ill need to drill out each dowel plug and remove each screw.
4. Wheels could be prettier! A lovely robust cast iron set would be spot on.
5. the slotted stop work well but I'm conscious of water 'sitting' in the slots. It would work well with a slotted brass or steel bar system instead with easy water drain.
6. the plan is to have a swivel out drinks holder fixed to the underside of the main frame or a slide out tray maybe. For another time.

Thanks for reading.