The rope chair/A-frame "thingy"

Thought some of you might like to see this. Taking a little detour while the paint dries on the boat/bookcase.

Back in April I made this device for my son's "Tropical Room". The rope chair was given to me by someone I dated a few times. But it needed something to hang from. Using a bunch of 2x4s, that I took apart from other things that once were used for garage storage, I made a frame. The frame had to be wider than the top bar of the rope swing, and only come out from the wall about 3 feet.


First, I made a giant carpenter's square using 2 of the 8 foot 2x4s and making marks at 3 and 4 feet. When these marks were 5 feet apart...

I attached a diagonal brace and some more blocking to make it secure. Now it was ready to use.


Under this I laid one of my diagonal legs for marking. I put pieces of tape on the "square" to aid in the layout. Since I wanted it to have no more than a 3 foot span, the bottom piece of tape is 1.5 feet from the edge of the square. At the top of the picture you can see a small piece of 2x4 clamped in place to simulate the top beam.


I traced around the simulated top beam and the bottom of the leg...


...and cut out one leg. Then I used that leg to trace onto the 3 others and cut them all out. Here is a rough layout of one side of the frame.


And here is how the tops of the legs come together for the beam, which will be 2 pieces of 2x4 screwed together.


In this picture I simulated the beam and the floor.


Then I added a small angled block at the top and a brace in about the middle to make it an "A". The middle brace is drilled from underneath and bolted on. Makes for a smooth look when standing up.


Then I made the beam (just 2 pieces of 2x4 screwed together and cut to length)and put everything in place held with clamps.


After bolting the beam in place I set the rope swing in for a test run. It worked fine but at this point the entire frame had some side to side wobble.


I needed diagonal braces. For fun I wanted to use metal, copper in fact, but that was just too darn expensive. I got 1/2 inch galvanized electrical conduit instead. A 10 foot piece was about 2 bucks, as I recall. This I cut into 4 equal pieces and temporarily clamped them in place to get a visually appealing angle that did not interfere with the swing rotation.

For permanent fastening I first added temporary wood bracing to keep things plumb and level.


Then I went to work on the metal. Using a hand sledge and piece of 2x4 as an anvil I flattened the ends of each piece. I set thse in place and made marks, then bent them in a vice (using the sledge. Then drilled for screws.

In this pic you see:
Left - One diagonal brace before work done.
Right - One brace, flattened, bent, and drilled
Center - Test of faux painting. I wanted them to look rusty so I spray painted with rust colored primer paint, but not full coverage.


When all the pieces were fitted I removed the temporary bracing and painted each. Here is the unit with all the construction completed.


At this point I want to faux paint the wood to make it look weathered. My sister Cheryl did this for the small chest of drawers in the Tropical Room. I want to do the same thing, so that they will go together.

Here is that chest of drawers, which simulates a packing crate.


That's all for now!