Stool project

I built a stool for our first grandchild’s first Christmas. I was surprised at how complicated it was to build a simple stool with only 7 parts: a seat, 4 legs and 2 medalions. But the tapered and angled legs and the tedious engraving made it so. The first step, believe it or not, was to hand-engrave Cecilia’s name in a 1x6x12 piece of oak. Because the engraving was so tedious and error prone, and because there is no eraser with engraving, I chose to do the engraving on a small piece of the top before investing a lot of time in a seat only to destroy the whole seat. Better to risk wasting just a small piece. But with great care, good lighting and a steady hand, I was able to do the engraving to my satisfaction on the first try. Before starting, I made a name template on our computer. I picked a font, printed the name in the right size, and cut out the letters with an X-acto knife. The template was then taped to the wood and the letter outlines traced in ink on the wood. I used a 1/8 straight wood-carving bit mounted in a high-speed rotary tool to do the free-hand engraving.

The next step was to edge-glue the engraved piece to another blank piece to make a 10x12 seat top. I then edge-glued two more pieces to make a seat bottom. I used a biscuit jointer and #20 biscuits for the edge joints.

Seat parts machined and ready for edge joining

Seat parts with joining biscuits inserted

I then glued the top to the bottom, resulting in a seat about 1-1/2 inches thick.

Seat glue up

I made an ovoid-shaped cardboard template for the seat, traced it onto the seat stock and cut out the seat on the band saw. I then mounted a sanding disk to the table saw and smoothed the edges. I then set the seat aside to concentrate on the legs.

Because the legs were tapered, and because they were mounted at an angle, there was not a 90 degree angle anywhere on the finished legs. Since I didn’t have any stock thick enough, I first had to glue two pieces of wood together to make the leg stock. I then ripped it to the right width, and ran two edges through the jointer to flatten them. I then set up the thickness planer and ran the stock through it to get the desired thickness in both dimensions, making square leg stock. I then used the radial arm saw to cut the legs to length.

The next step was to cut the tenons in the end of each leg. I used a narrow blade on the table saw to cut the tenon shoulders. Since the legs were to be mounted to the seat at an angle, each shoulder cut had to be at the same angle, and each of the four shoulders of each leg required a different blade and guide setup. The blade had to be set at a 10 degree angle and the guide had to also be set at a 10 degree angle. Once all the shoulders were cut, I used a dado set on the table saw to remove the remainder of the material to create the 1/8” tenons. Once the tenons were finished, I cut off both ends of each leg at 14 degree angles using a compound miter saw. As with the tenon shoulder cuts, the miter saw had to be set at a compound 10-10 degree angle setting.

Miter saw setup for trimming the ends of the legs

Legs with tenons cut and ends cut at 14 degrees

(Yes, I'm planning for more grandkids!)

Next came the leg tapers. I mocked up a leg in cardboard to arrive at an aesthetically-pleasing taper. I then marked the taper on the sides of the legs and cut the tapers on the band saw. I then ran all 4 sides of each leg over the jointer to smooth the rough band saw cuts.

Legs tapered

The final machining step on the legs was to mount my router in the router table with a ¼ inch round-over bit, and ease the edges of the tapered part of each leg. I used a stop block to achieve consistency of the length of these cuts.

Router table setup

I then used a belt sander to smooth all four sides of each leg.

Finished legs

Now that the legs were completed, it was time to get back to the seat. Since I wanted the legs mounted to the seat at a 14-degree angle, I had to make a custom bed for the mortising tool. And it had to be a compound angle; 10 degrees in each of two orthogonal dimensions. My old college drafting protractor was used to measure the angles. I used scrap wood to make the angled bed and bolted it to the tool’s standard horizontal bed.

Custom mortising tool bed

I then taped paper to the top of the seat to protect it while cutting the mortises. The seat was then flipped over top-down and clamped to the mortising tool bed and each mortise was cut about 1” deep. Since the oak was so hard, I had to use a 3/8 mortising bit, and do multiple plunges to get the holes large enough to receive the leg tenons, which measured about 0.9” square. For those of you who aren’t into woodworking, a mortising machine is similar to a drill press but it makes square holes instead of round ones.

Seat top in position for cutting mortises to accept legs

Once the seat was mortised, I used a hand-held router and a ball-bearing-guided 3/8 round over bit to round off both the top and bottom edges of the seat.

Router setup

After a little finish sanding, the seat was ready for assembly.

Finished seat

Gluing the legs in was the easiest part of the whole job. It just took a few minutes and an hour to dry. To dress up the legs, I cut two medallions, engraved them with tulips, and glued them to the front legs.

Assembly

Next came my least-favorite part of woodworking: applying the finish. To get an ultra-smooth finish on the top, I brushed on a light coat of sanding sealer to the top only and once it was dry, block sanded the top lightly to remove any raised grain and dust particles. I then applied a “Modern Walnut” stain to the entire piece and let it dry overnight. The end grain exposed in the engravings soaked up more stain than the top giving the engravings a nice, contrasting hue. This was followed by a couple of coats of Deft Satin clear lacquer sprayed on in light coats. One more coat on the top and then on to the finish sanding. I used 1500 wet or dry sandpaper lubricated with Tung oil and backed by a hard block to give the top a rich, level satin finish, and then lightly sanded the rest of the stool backed only by my fingers, to remove any embedded dust particles.

The final, final step was to attach 7/8 inch glides to the leg bottoms.

Another view of the finished stool

The finished stool stands 7 inches tall and the seat is 10 x 12. The legs were angled for two reasons: 1) to make the piece more aesthetically pleasing but more importantly 2) to give the stool good stability so that little Cecilia wouldn’t get dumped in the floor if sitting too close to the edge.

Post script: Eleven power tools and many hours of hand work were used in the stool’s construction. I just hope Cecilia enjoys it as much as I enjoyed building it.