Folding / Rocking Deck Chair

A client came into my shop with a severely weathered and deteriorated deck chair she’d come into possession of that she wanted to reconstruct and contemporize. It was apparently originally made in the early 1900’s somewhere in New England. After a ‘mock up’ in construction grade fir to confirm the mechanical integrity of the original design, I settled on hard maple for the material both for its’ appearance and durability. Intrigued by the concept of the piece, I decided to make two and built both at the same time. Currently, some forty years later, on my copy of the chair, the sling seat has been replaced and the maple, now pleasantly seasoned and colored, was steel-wool cleaned for these photos.

The original incarnation of the design utilized steel pins as hinge points and were seriously rusted when all the parts first came to me. I located some aluminum binder posts that worked beautifully for the purpose. Recently, after forty-some years, they still function perfectly.

Optional holes were added that would allow some flexibility in the chair’s posture when assembled.