Rogue Leather

I got a little distracted while building this, so I’ll put the whole thing up in one post instead of making you wait for it. Here’s a couple shots of the completed build, then I’ll break it down into components after the jump.

The materials:

3/4″ plywood – I found that my local Home Depot carries several grades of plywood in 23″x23″ squares at a reasonable price. The downside is that these are usually prone to having more knots than the fine-grade full sheets. One of these was enough to complete the seat, arms and the lateral supports for the legs.

2″x2″ square stock – if you aren’t familiar with wood sizes, you’ll discover that they always exaggerate the dimensions by 1/4″ in each direction, which means a 2″x2″ is really only 1-1/2″x1-1/2″ – but that’s all you really needed anyway. Usually comes in 10-foot lengths which is plenty. My original plan called for the longitudinal leg braces to be the same material as the legs, but I messed up a couple of cuts and went with some pine out of my scrap bins.

Hardware –

• a good hinge (Al used a piano hinge; I was going to use a door hinge until I realized I didn’t have room to mount it so I went with a cabinet “T” hinge – it wobbles just a touch),
• several lag bolts with nuts and washers from 1-1/2″ to 3″,
• a box of 2″ wood screws,
• a 1″ welded D-ring, (I just had to replace my original due to stretch)
• a pair of compression springs
• some mild steel, about 12″. (Home Depot only sells 3-foot lengths)
• a small bit of steel strapping,
• a handful of 1″ screws to mount the Footman’s loops and the saw teeth.
• 3  Footman’s loops and the Conway buckle (purchased at my local leather supply store.)
• Lastly, there will be a bottle of wood glue and about 30″ of strap leather cut to 7/8″.

Read more »