Stool Build - 8:00

Glue up.

Not too much to say here.  I would say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I had no time to shoot photos of the glue up while actually doing it.  All you'll get is this one photo.

Not too many pictures of the glue-up.  I was busy.

I will say that applying a coat of wax first did greatly assist in cleaning up the squeeze out.  Also, the wedges did a good enough job of holding everything together without the need of clamping anything.  While I wouldn't yet trust it to sit in, it is plenty stable enough to continue a bit of the construction process.

If doing the stool early isn't cheating, is using a laser beam to get the stool the exact same height as my tool chest?

It looks like a stool!  This is as far as I got the first night.

Next up:  Finishing touches.

View the rest of my build here.

Stool Build - 7:00

It's weird how long a project stays in the "Almost Done" catagory, isn't it?

What next needs to happen is to prepare all the pieces that will get a wedge in the round tenon.  To do this, all that is required is to saw down the middle of the tenon.  This will leave a kerf wide enough to take a wedge.  To be on the safe side, I first drilled some holes with my eggbeater Millers Falls #5 to stop the cut, and hopefully prevent the wood from splitting all the way down.

Drilling a hole to prevent splitting during the wedging action.

Holes drilled.

Sawing the kerf for later wedging.

Hand-sawn wedges in beech.  Oh yeah!  I forgot to say the stool is in scots pine, with the stretchers and wedges in steamed beech.

Next up:  Almost done!

View the rest of my build here.

Stool Build - 5:00

Shaping the seat and some little stuff.

I had no thought as to what the final shape of the seat should be.  I decided just to design it on the fly at this point.  I thought leaving it square was a bit lame, so I sawed off the corners (once again at the exact angle of, "that's about right"), chamfered the sharp edges, and generally fiddled with it until I was happy.

Chamfering...

And a little wax before glue-up.

Next up:  Holes and wedges.

View the rest of my build here.

Stool Build - 4:00

Time to see if Moby Dick works.

Moby Dick is formerly a home-made scrub plane I re-shaped into a compass plane for hollowing the seat.

I'm not counting this as a new tool since I spent no money to convert it.

I laid out the part of the seat to be shaped by sitting on it, and tracing around my bottom.  I then used a compass to even out my markings a bit. 

Will Moby Dick work?

Eventually, I decided this was a little uncomfortable and hollowed some following sitting on it to test the fit.  I found the most comfort by hollowing it out past the back.  It should still stand upside down easy, as the sides are still in a flat plane - I did not touch them with Moby Dick.

Seems to work great across the grain.

Clean up with a scraper.

Next up:  Fine tuning the seat.

View the rest of my build here.

Stool Build - 3:00

A guy's gotta take a nap, doesn't he?

After a little break It's back to work.  This stool will definitely need stretchers.

My original intention was to place the stretchers at the same height as my sawbench, in order to use it as an extension for longer pieces.  The multi-function is a great idea, but it would look weird having the stretchers so high.  Also, I'm not sure it would be structurally as good as having them lower.

While thinking about this problem the other day, I came upon the brilliant idea of laying out the stretchers to stand at the exact height of the sawbench - while the stool was standing upside down.  This is a great idea as not only will it mean it can accommodate wider boards, but the stretchers will be farther down for stability, AND it will be easier to lay out.

Use a pencil to mark where the top of the stretcher should go (or bottom, depending on your preference for the perspective.  The point is when it is upside down, the stretchers are at the same height as the sawbench).

One in already!

Here's how I did it.

Using a bevel and a brace.

They might need a bit of adjusting, but they are all in!

Next up:  Shaping the seat.

View the rest of my build here.

Stool Build-Off - 1:00

I decided the next step was to drill the one-inch holes in the seat for the legs.  Here is the beauty of hand tools:  I measured not one angle.  I set my gauges by eye, and kept them there.

The front legs do not stick out.  They angle only enough to bring the feet about even with the front of the seat.  The back ones angle a little more, to increase stability a little.  This stool should store away nicely.

A couple of bevel-gauges.

I picked these numbers because they looked about right.

This is precisely the angle of, "it looks about right."

Using the bevels to eyeball a brace and bit.

A couple of wonky angles, but hey!  It's my first Windsor chair!  I fixed these by rasping the edges of the hole a bit, and during glue up wedged the crap out of it.

Marking out the new shoulder.

Trimming the new shoulder.

Surprise, surprise!  It worked!  It's starting to look like a stool!

Next up:  Stretchers.

View the rest of my build here.

Stool Build - 12:00

I forgot to mention my parameters for this project.  Besides the ones set out by the build-off itself (build in one day), I imposed some of my own limits:

• I want to use only lumber I already have on hand.
• I want to use only tools I already have (no new tools just for this).
• The stool should have a small-ish footprint to avoid being more trouble than it is worth, as my shop is only about 100 square feet in size.  I'll call it a bonus if this stool fulfills multiple functions to earn it's real estate in my shop.  Bonus #2 is if it happens to look nice.

It should be easy enough. Right?

I settled on a rough shape similar to a bar stool I saw at work.  Except, instead of being engineered to be mass produced cheaply, mine will essentially be a Windsor chair.  At least, it will have a solid seat that the legs bore into.

If this is what I want, I need to make the ends of my legs round.

A triangle to keep the legs in order.

I'll attempt to find the center of this 8-sided shape, so I can draw a circle.

Close enough.

This is a temporary shoulder.  It is square, and once the leg is installed, it will need to be trimmed to whatever angle the leg happens to be at.

Ready to make the end a dowel.  I'm sure there are some great tools to do this with.  I don't have them, so I'll use a chisel, a rasp, and whatever else I can find to do this the old-fashioned way.

So far, so good!

It fits in my test piece!

Next up:  Fitting the legs to the seat.

View the rest of my build here.