Adirondak Chair Lumber

[Tim Elder]

My wife has been wanting a pair of Adirondak chairs and I was thinking about making them for Mother's Day, although time is running short. i've been trying to decide what type of lumber to use. I just noticed that there's a CL ad for Padauk priced at $3.50 BF. I've never used Padauk before, but I think it's supposed to be pretty decay resistant. Anyone have thoughts about if this would be a good choice for the chairs? And is this a good price?

[Prashun Patel]

I think cedar is the 'best' choice. Weathers well and is naturally decay resistant. Best: it's light so moving the chair will be easy.

Other good choices for outdoors in the 'economical' range are white oak and redwood

[Tom Matthews]

I just built two folding chairs from Lee Valley's plans using Red Cedar I bought at Menards. I bought 1x6 boards that were 8ft long for about $7/each when it was on sale.

The boards are rough on one side and 7/8 thick, so a quick trip through the planer and they were 3/4. The Lee Valley plan assumes your board dimensions are 3/4 x 5.5, so it worked perfectly.

The single 1x8 board I needed (for the arms) was more expensive, but not by much.

I don't have a good local source for dried red cedar and even if I did, I doubt it would have been cheaper than Menards.

I had to pick through about 50 boards to get 16 that were good quality and even then I had some sap wood in them. 16 was way more than I needed to build two chairs (I ended up going back and getting two more so I could build a third chair). Like all lumber at the home centers, be prepared to sort.

[Bob Riefer]

I'll be using rough cut white cedar for my chairs that I'll be making beginning this weekend. The sawmill also suggested white oak as Prashun noted above. He commented that the white oak would be stronger and heavier than the white cedar, but that for chairs the white cedar would be plenty strong enough. He also commented that the white cedar would be much lighter than the white oak. We did not discuss red cedar as that is not readily available at this particular saw mill. If memory serves, the cost for both of the woods was under $2.50 per board foot when I talked to him last, but that may have changed since then.

[Terry Wawro]

I've built several out of Cypress. Cypress is decay resistant, stronger than cedar and lighter than white oak. I like the way it looks machines and ages. For me it was around $2 per board foot.

[Rick Moyer]

can't answer about Padauk, but I would suspect cypress would be easy to get and relatively inexpensive in your area. I made my last two out of cypress. White Oak would be good too, or cedar. Redwood isn't "economical" around here.

[Kenneth Moar]

Western red cedar is my go to wood for Adirondack chairs, but African Paduck (Pterocarpus soyauxii) would make one kick ass adirondack chair, heavy, strong, striking colour, until it weathers out. $3.50 , is giving it away by my standards.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I agree with Kenneth - $3.50 for padauk is very, very cheap. I'd buy that just to have it around.

Cypress is great for these chairs.

[Larry Frank]

+1 on the cypress. I made two chairs from it. I had never worked with it before but it was easy to work and very decay resistant.

[Bill Huber]

I have made a few out of cypress and really like it, it works very nice and ages well. I have some that have been out in the weather for 3 years and they are now a very light gray and are doing great.

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[Sean Nagle]

Bill, did you use a published plan for your Adirondack chairs? I really like the design and proportions.

[Bill Huber]

Bill, did you use a published plan for your Adirondack chairs? I really like the design and proportions.

That is the Lee Valley plan, the only difference is I made it 2" wider then the plan called for.

[Tom Matthews]

That is the Lee Valley plan, the only difference is I made it 2" wider then the plan called for.

You noticed it was a little too narrow too? That's my only complaint about the Lee Valley plan - they're slightly narrow for our American behinds apparently. I thought it was just me, but everyone else who's sat in them has said the same thing.

I'm going to make the next one a bit wider. Did you stay with 7 back slats, or did you add an 8th? Going 2 inches wider was what I was thinking, but I thought I'd have to have another back slat then.

[Rick Moyer]

That is the Lee Valley plan, the only difference is I made it 2" wider then the plan called for.

So how wide are the seat slats? I made some "Jake's" chairs and narrowed them by two inches. My slats are now 25" instead of 27".

[Tom Matthews]

So how wide are the seat slats? I made some "Jake's" chairs and narrowed them by two inches. My slats are now 25" instead of 27".

The cutting list calls for cutting the seat slats to around 18.25 inches, but then you cut them down to fit your chair. I think if you do everything absolutely to plan, you end up with seat slats that are around 16.5-17" wide. Note this is from the folding version of the chair, I'm not sure how different it is from the standard chair.

It's actually enough room when you're sitting down in it, but when you get in or out, you tend to brush on the arms of the chairs. On the chairs I've already built, I will probably cut down the arms by taking off 0.5-1.0 inches from the inside of each arm and that should make getting in and out a bit easier.