One of my first big projects for myself was something to sit on. I looked around and came upon a web site called Spiffing Up Your Campsite. Looking through plans on the site I came upon The Coffer Chair and decided I wanted one. At the time I was in the army stationed in Texas, in The Kingdom of Ansteorra. The first chair I built I used a jig saw to cut out the shape, a circular saw to cut half laps and a drill to connect the dowels.
I was pretty proud of my success but found a few things I didn't like. My back support was low and the arms were uncomfortable. I used a board for the seat with some padding but when it folded up I had to carry both parts. plus with my location of the dowels the supports for the back broke off and needed to be repaired. With one success under my belt I went on to a second one. I began the chair and then had to pause it when I deployed to Iraq. Upon returning I used some bonus money to expand my tools collection, adding a sander and a table top belt sander to my collection.
This one was much the same but instead of dowels I used 2x2's and added a solid back. The arms were more comfortable but the back arms still broke and now the chair was in three pieces to move.
In 2004 when I started there weren't very many people making chairs. benches, bag chairs and coleman chairs were the order of the day. I liked the chair and also liked having something so different and unique. but it wasn't quite right so I began looking online for more chairs to learn from.
My searching reveled a number of chairs and some background on the chairs. Coffer chair, Dantesca chair, x chair, curule chair. The chair has many names but Dantesca is what I am most familiar with.
Looking closely at the two chairs posted above you may notice some differences. First and foremost I changed my leg design from the original. This did several major things for me. First and foremost my new layout was more in keeping with the lines of the historic examples I was seeing. Second it let me put my own stamp on the pattern so I was not just copying the work of someone else. Third and final was that I could now cut a leg out of a standard 2x6 from the big box stores. Second I added a wider arm that is tenoned into the legs instead of the dowel. Third I went to all fabric for the seat and back, allowing it to be folded without having loose pieces to carry. Previously I had nailed the seat to the support stretchers but now I am using grommets set into the fabric and cord to allow the tension to be tightened or loosened as needed.
Supplies:
2 - 2x6x8'
4x6x30"
2 yards non stretch upholstery fabric.
10-15 grommets
2 yards of cording
2 carriage bolts 5/16 x 1 1/2"
4 washers 5/16
2 lock nuts 5/16
pattern
Arm Pattern
pattern is on a 1x1 grid
Better lumber will produce a better product of course but this pattern and these instructions are done using cheap lumber store dimensional lumber.
Take your time in selecting your lumber, if you have to go through the entire pile looking for flat and straight boards with no cracks and as few knots as you can get. As long as you make sure to leave the pile reasonably neat most of the time the store doesn't mind.
I like to make sure my boards are flat to begin with so I run them through my jointer first. Once they are flat and smooth I run them through the planer to get them parallel.
I make a number of these chairs so I have created a one to one pattern out of mdf, if your only making one then you can use a paper pattern scaled out so the light blue blocks are 1" square. Placing the pattern on the lumber and trace out. All four legs will be the same at this point.
Cut out the legs using whatever means are available, I have used a jig saw as well as a band saw, a band saw has a greater ability to keep the sides 90 degrees to the face but with care a jig saw will do so as well.
Cut out the legs and clean them up, sand the saw mark and remove any stray pencil marks.
The circular center of each leg needs to have half of the material removed to create a joint known as a half lap joint. My preferred method is to use a router and a circle cutting jig to cut the outside edge of the circle out, going to a depth of 1/2 of the thickness of the leg.
From here the next step is to remove the remaining material. A hammer and chisel can be used but must be done gently taking a small amount of wood at a time.
If you try to take to much off at once you risk splitting the wood.
At this point you can use planes, sand paper, files, or any other means at your disposal to get the wood smooth and flat.
Alternately you can use your router to free hand remove the rest, again taking a small amount out each time to avoid splitting.
