I bought my first house in February 2002. It needed major work in several areas, and that was how I spent most of my free time during the following calendar year. But by late spring of 2003, I was looking around for an interesting project I actually wanted to do. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife!) had a rickety pine futon-couch, and I decided it might be fun to copy the design and build a really rugged one out of oak.
Three months later, I had a fully functional, flip-down futon couch:
(Pictures coming soon...)
The seat and back are joined by 1/2"-diameter stainless steel hinge pins. For flip-down action, the pins ride on nylon bushings in tracks I milled in the armrests:
I designed the track shapes to provide a natural braking effect when it’s nearly to the flat position so that you don’t “slam” it flat and overstress all the joints:
(Pictures coming soon...)
Where the stainless steel pins pass through the seatback frame, I installed extra blocks of wood to help the wood/pin interface resist bending loads and “egging out” of the holes; you can see those blocks in the above photo.
Questions? Comments? Email me!
©2007, Mitchell P. Patrie