Each parent sooner or later faces the problem of acquiring children's furniture, and a high chair in this case is no exception. Moreover, the market with similar products offers us a fairly wide range, but when choosing, there are often some difficulties. In particular, which material to prefer? The tree in this fight, of course, wins, but the price of such a product leaves much to be desired. You can buy a plastic chair, but it is not very pleasant to the touch and not always comfortable. There is a way out: make children's chairs with your own hands.
Assigning a baby chair
The use of this piece of furniture has some features that depend on the age of the child. To accustom the baby to a high chair, you need to start at the moment when the child can already sit on his own (usually this is about 6-8 months old). At first, it is used exclusively for feeding, and only then - for sitting during creativity or other activities. To date, do-it-yourself highchairs that can be usedfor a child, there are two types:
- simple chairs that can hold even an inexperienced toddler;
- transforming chairs that perform several functions at the same time.
With age, the child has a lot of hobbies that require spending a certain amount of time in a sitting position on a chair. The main function is still to use it for sitting at the table, including the dining one. This highchair, made with your own hands, taking into account all the wishes, will become your baby's favorite.
Required Materials
It is very easy to make a highchair with your own hands, it is enough to strictly follow the sequence of actions and have all the necessary tools and materials at hand. To make you will need:
- several bars that have a section of 50x50 mm;
- bars with a section of 25x25 mm;
- bars with a section of 25x50 mm;
- 25 mm board;
- self-tapping screws;
- drill driver;
- screwdriver (if necessary);
- sandpaper.
Since the chair is intended for use by children, it is worth remembering the high quality of the material and its safety for he alth. It is also necessary to consider what the dimensions of the highchair should be. This piece of furniture should be made with your own hands, using only those bars that have a flat and dry surface. Only if these rules are observed, the life of the chair will be significant.
Preparatory work
Before you make a highchair with your own hands, drawings of the details must be made. Before starting work, it is necessary to carefully prepare the blanks. The material should be dried, then sandpaper over its surface. The latter must be done until the workpieces are perfectly smooth. This is necessary to exclude the possibility of injury to the baby.
After preparing the material, a schematic drawing, the so-called sketch, should be made. If you are making a highchair with your own hands, try to make the drawings as simple as possible. Then, when assembling, you will not have any difficulties.
Assembling legs
You need to start making highchairs with your own hands from the bottom of the future product, namely from its legs. You will need two wooden blanks 27 cm long and 52 cm long. These parts of the chair must be carefully processed using special tools for working with wood - a workbench and a planer. All four sides of the bars must be brought to a size of 40x40 mm. For ease of processing, you can safely use a vise, between which you can put a bar. To avoid dents, preventive measures must be taken, in particular, the use of spacers made of thin aluminum or plywood, having previously given them an L-shape. After processing the legs of the future chair with a planer, you need to mark up and remove all unnecessary parts with an electric jigsaw.
Assembling the crossbars and backrest
At this stage, the back of the product is being designed, as well as the corresponding crossbars. The blanks for the crossbars should be about 17 cm long, and for the back - 16 cm. When cutting the crossbars and backs, you need to make a tolerance of about 5 cm. You can’t forget about this, since they are essential for further processing. The processing itself is similar to the previous procedure. As a result of all actions, you should get bars with the following parameters:
- 10x15mm;
- 20x20mm;
- 20х45 mm.
For sitting, you need to take wooden boards, there should be two of them. Moreover, the dimensions should be as follows: 150x250x25 mm. These boards need to be planed on four sides. Gaps are not allowed. After the edges are processed, the sharp corners of the boards need to be rounded off. Various templates will help you with this. At the end, these blanks must be worked out with sandpaper, especially for the ends of the bars, which should be perfectly smooth as a result.
Production of lock elements
This stage involves the following steps. First of all, using a drill, in accordance with the existing markings on the legs of the future chair, you need to make holes that will not be through, but deaf. A well-known tool - a chisel - will help facilitate this task. Using this device in combination with a chisel, all excess wood must be removed from the resulting grooves.
Selecting the method of fastening parts
Before the direct assembly of all parts, you must select the method by which they will be attached to each other. There are several ways to do this:
- with spikes;
- using glue;
- with nails;
- wedge method.
The last method is the most popular. To do this, on the spikes that are located on the crossbars, make a cut for the entire length with a width of 5 mm. The wedges should be about 5 mm shorter than the grooves, but it is recommended to increase their width by 0.5 mm. Before inserting the crossbars into the grooves, the wedge must be mounted in the resulting cut, and then assemble all the parts with a mallet. This will cause the wedge to expand the tenon and the chair will not loosen.
Final assembly of the product
After all the blanks are cut out and their surface is smooth enough, you can safely proceed to the final assembly of the product. You will get more reliable highchairs by additionally smearing all their joints with PVA glue with your own hands. It is necessary to start the assembly from the frame. To do this, you will need bars measuring 15x15 mm and self-tapping screws. After the frame is designed, you can mount the board, which will act as a seat. Before that, it is desirable to make holes for self-tapping screws in the bars. This is necessary so that when assembling the chair, namely when screwing the fasteners, the product is not damaged. The bars themselves need to be attached precisely to the inside of the crossbar, andthen install the seat itself.
You can make your own children's tables and chairs with your own hands, such as in the photo below.
You can finish the work by covering the entire chair with varnish, after painting the product in the desired color.
