Stuart’s Library Ladder

I just wanted to thank you for this awesome site you’ve built and how it’s inspired me to get into wood working. I’m 20 and a second year in college in a fine arts program. One of the assignments of our design course in school is to design and build something of our choosing. I was inspired by an article I read on Fine Woodworking’s site about furniture called library ladders, like chairs that fold into step ladders. After watching pretty much all of your project videos, I figured I’d give it a shot for my first major woodworking project. After watching the mortise and tenon video, I figured that would be the coolest joinery to work with on the chair I was making. I mean, you made it look so easy. Wow, what a jerk move. Do you know how long it took me to painstakingly drill press and chisel out like 20 mortises? Well, regardless of what a pain it was, the chair turned out great, though with a few flaws. So thanks for inspiring me to get started in the first place and maybe I’ll take on a few of your posted projects as something to try next.

Comments

  1. Derek Hall May 26, 2010

    Great job.. this is something on my long term todo list. I’ve always been fascinated by it for some reason.

  2. Andrew Ford May 26, 2010

    Looks great.

  3. Matt Rakowski May 26, 2010

    looks like it turned out great. wonderful job

  4. wonderful choice of wood.

  5. Jason Scott May 26, 2010

    Looks really good! Did you get that “God-like” feeling when you were done and stepped back to admire it?

  6. Marty May 26, 2010

    Nice job!
    Regarding the mortises-If it was easy then everyone would do it.:) That’s why most of us on here drool over power tools.

  7. Kevin Rehmann May 26, 2010

    Nicely done! How do I get my hands on plans like that? I would love to make one for my mom.

  8. InsideBevel May 26, 2010

    Interesting…,
    did you find plans for this online somewhere?

    • I think the whole idea was for him to design it, and then build it.

    • Stuart May 27, 2010

      unfortunatley, if you want plans for this chair project, you have to make em yourself. The whole project was for a design class at my school, so I had to design and build this from scratch. if you want a strting point, the design i based my chair off of is one I found just by googling library ladder chair, and I found this website http://www.thejademonkey.com/c.....au/celtic/
      scroll down, check it out, design something and try and build it!

  9. Leon May 27, 2010

    Very well done. An ambitious piece of furniture for a first project, but you pulled it off. Good job.
    If this is what you can do on a first try, imagine how great you will be in 5 yrs.

  10. RayCurtis May 27, 2010

    Great Job, especially for a first project.

  11. Dan Drabek May 27, 2010

    A very cool piece. A little heavy duty for a chair, but certainly appropriate for the ladder function.
    I know that cutting mortices through thick, hard wood is not easy. If I were planning on doing more than a few, I would probably invest in a mortising bit for my drill press.

    DD

  12. mark williams June 1, 2010

    Dude,

    Make a sketch up file and then sell it. I would buy it. Really nice job!

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