Reclining lounge chair

On a sunny loggia in a city apartment or on a green lawn of a country plot, it is pleasant to sit in a comfortable deck chair. Its design, proposed by the Hungarian magazine Ezermester, differs from traditional deck-chair schemes in that the chair is not only foldable but also detachable.

In fact, it is made of two separate frames, one of which, the seat, is inserted into the other, which serves as the backrest. Each frame has its own features that ensure a reliable interconnection in the working position, and without any additional fasteners. Let us consider each frame separately.

The simpler one is the seat. It is assembled from two supporting wooden bars with a cross-section of 50×20 mm and a length of about 1000 mm, connected at the top and bottom by cross slats 60×15 mm. All upper slats are overlay slats, fixed with screws and forming the actual seat; the lower slat is a tying one, it is mortised and installed with a large offset from the main group of slats. The supporting ends of the bars may have bevels for better contact with the surface where the chair stands.

The backrest frame is assembled differently. Its base is also formed by two supporting wooden bars, as in the seat, but they are connected by three cross elements. The upper one is an overlay slat, as in the seat, only it is fixed on the rear side of the backrest. The lower one is a bar similar in section to the supporting bars: it carries the main load directly. Slightly above it, but on the reverse side, another identical bar is installed. Since it is also a stop bar, it experiences the same loads as the neighboring lower one. Together, under the load of a seated person, they form a kind of clamping lock that holds the seat inserted between them in the working position.

The part of the chair that supports the back can be made in different ways, depending on the preference of the person making the deck chair. The simplest solution is to make it from fabric (awning cloth, tarpaulin, canvas) by nailing the sheet to the support bars from the rear side. Such a backrest can also be more complex, made of two layers of fabric with transverse strips of thick foam sewn between them. Options for fastening such a backrest, as well as another way of installing a cross slat under it with mortising into the support bars, are shown in the drawings.

If there is no need for the backrest to be soft, wooden slats can be used instead of fabric – the same as on the seat.

To put the deck chair into working position, it is enough to insert the seat frame between the lock bars of the backrest, which under load clamp it and ensure a reliable and stable position. In the disassembled form, both frames together or separately are convenient both for carrying and for storage.

It remains to add that such a deck chair will be not only practical but also attractive if the wooden parts are painted with bright enamels or oil paint (possibly in different colors), and the fabric is chosen in a variegated decorative pattern.

“Modelist-Konstruktor” No. 3’2003