Sunday, October 28, 2012

A Simple Stool

I'd had a couple of pieces of red oak that I'd bought out of the assumption that I'd attempt to make some sort of furniture out of it. That assumption lasted for about an entire year until during my honeymoon I got the itch to be productive and start working with my hands again. I settled on building a stool out of it, simply because it's a lot easier to make than a chair, it's good practice for cutting mortises and tenons, and it's not going to take up as much space as a chair wood.
So I cut the stock to length, prepped it, squared it, and successfully cut the mortises and tenons over the course of two days. That's probably the fastest I've worked, and it's a nice change of pace from my agonizingly slow work habits of old. However, like all problems I've encountered, everything went to h when I attempted to glue it up. I sliced my palm and the entire thing's slightly out of square.
At least I'm learning. I'd done a dry fit of each individual tenon and mortise, but I didn't do a dry fit with all the mortises and tenons assembled together to see if it was out of square or if one tenon was too long, etc.
Still, it fit together flawlessly with the exception of one post and now I know to assemble the whole thing to ensure all components mesh as they should.
Right now I'm weaving the jute seat for it. I would've liked using Shaker tape for it, but I'm afraid that I haven't been able to find that anywhere.
What's next on the agenda? Well, I'll try building another stool, but this one will be three legged with none of the mistakes repeated.

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