How to make a small outdoor chair from firewood?
Question:I am a 15 year old girl, and live on a lake house. I would love to build (by myself) a small outdoor chair. The only wood that we have is round, but from a few trees which have been cutdown. They are about 18-20 inches long, and 4-6 inches wide.
I would love to make this to make my own little 'spot' by the water, complete with some flowers. I'm not sure how much wood I have, but any plan would be great. Of course it would be awesome if it isnt too hard, because I AM only 15. I have open-access to power tools and nails, etc.
Answers:
Take a tape measure and measure what you have. Send me an email and I will try to draw up a plan..But just to let you know...firewood and plywood will have wood splinters..Ouch!
Maybe you could just outfit your special hid away with an old lawn chair.It wont rot and no splinters...And you can fold it up and hide it under some brush.
Bless your heart for being so ambitious. What a great thing for you to be interested in. Figure this out and you have a real money maker on your hands! The key to this is figuring out how to join the logs together. You will probably be forced to use some form of mortise & tenon joinery, where you shape the ends of the logs to fit into a hole you carve in the accepting logs. You won't want to use nails or screws. That won't last long, and it won't work as well. Have access to a lathe? Reduce the size of the log ends, and make round holes in the accepting logs. Use a rubber mallet to tap in your logs. Don't be afraid to use some glue in there!
If for some reason you can't hack the mortise/tenon method, look into using a pocket hole jig to make hidden predrills for screws which you can make pretty with plugs. Good luck!
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