Building a stool

[Harlan Barnhart]

I rescued a walnut scrap from someone's discard pile. It looked like it wanted to be a stool.

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I liked the organic edge and wanted to keep it, so I dressed it up a little with a drawknife.


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Here are the legs. I planned a little shape into the outside edge. The two pieces in the back are the stretcher and the feet. This is all cherry.


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A little sketching to gauge the angles. This version has a drawer which was later abandoned.


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I laid out a generous dovetail on either side to receive the legs.


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The waste was chopped and split out.

[Harlan Barnhart]

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I marked the legs using the dovetail chopped into the top.


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I carried the marks down the sides of the legs and pared out the waste.


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After a lot of fitting and fooling around I had two leg joints that looked like this.


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Next I inserted the legs and chose the placement of the stretcher.


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I marked the stretcher and the mortises on the legs at the same fitting, clamping to ensure nothing moved.


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The mortises were chopped out from both sides, meeting in the middle.

[Harlan Barnhart]

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I scored the layout knife marks with a chisel and cut away a bit on the waste side creating a little wall to guide the saw.
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Sawing the shoulders.
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Sawing the tenons. First across the top and down one side, then flipping it around and repeating.


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Finishing the cut by sawing straight through to the baseline.


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After a lot of paring and dry fitting, the stretcher looked like this.


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To set the leg length, I flipped it upside down and measured equal lengths to the bottom of the seat and cut along that line. Next I used a straight edge and a square to layout the bridle joint for the feet.

[Brian Holcombe]

This is coming along nicely. I love to see stuff like this, it's in my vernacular.

[Harlan Barnhart]

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Drilling a hole to remove waste is faster than chopping.


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Sawing out the waste.


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Half of a bridle joint with just a little paring left undone.


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Ready to mark out the other half of the joint on the foot.


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Layout lines on the foot have been deepened in preparation for sawing.


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The edges have been sawn and the waste is ready to be removed.

[Harlan Barnhart]

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Most of the waste was removed with a chisel.


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The face of the joint was trued up with a router plane.


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After some fitting, the joint slid together.


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Creating some decorative stopped chamfers on the foot with a spokeshave.


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Standing on its own two feet.

[Jack Curtis]

Very nice looking, Harlan. I disagree on your chopping vs drilling equation, but not on anything in your design. Where will you use this stool?

[Brian Holcombe]

I'm enjoying the dovetails at the top of the bench.

[Daniel Rode]

I rescued a walnut scrap from someone's discard pile. It looked like it wanted to be a stool.

This is my favorite quote this month.

Thanks for posting these. I really liked seeing the pictures as you went along. I learn something every time some posts like this. I can't put a name to the style of this stool, but I like what's you've done.

[Harlan Barnhart]

Very nice looking, Harlan. I disagree on your chopping vs drilling equation, but not on anything in your design. Where will you use this stool?

Hi Jack. Drilling is faster when I'm the one doing it... I'm not sure where it will end up. I may use it as a bedside table and as overflow seating in the living room.

[Harlan Barnhart]

This is coming along nicely. I love to see stuff like this, it's in my vernacular.

I call it the "use the stuff you have" vernacular.

[Paul Saffold]

Thanks for sharing, Harlan. Hope you'll show a picture when it's all finished.

[Harlan Barnhart]

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Here it is finished. One coat of safflower oil, and two brush coats of shellac, steel wooled to a dull shine.


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A few detail shots...

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The through tenons were wedged.


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Foot detail
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In use already...

[Christopher Charles]

Fabulous-- i really like the joint to the seat. And that's my kind of scrap pile. Also, impressive work for what looks to be a very small space!

C

[Mike Hollingsworth]

stupendous!