[Hand-Tool Woodworking]

Project: Oak Stool

Materials

• 1 White Oak Board (1.5"x12"x8')

Tools

• Stanley #5 Jack Plane
• Japanese Pull Saws
• 1/2" Chisel
• Brace and bit
• Wheel cutting marking gauge
• Mallet (scrappy, made from Douglas Fir leg column)
• Sharpening stones + strop
• Square
• Measuring tape
• Titebond III Wood Glue

A stool for a tired dad

My 8 years old son uses my bathtub as part of his bedtime routine. He prefers to have company to chat and play games, but I have nowhere to sit. I found a beautiful piece of highly figured white oak at my local lumber store and thought it'd make a nice stool.

This is the second stool I've made, and for this one I wanted something really chunky. So I doubled up the board for all the legs and seat and carefully selected pieces with matching grain. Chopping the mortises in the dense oak seat was a pain, so I pre-drilled with the brace and bit.

The trickiest part was getting the angles correct on the tenons that insert into the seat. They need to splay outward at the correct angles and the tenon shoulders should meet flush against the bottom of the seat. On the first stool I made I cut angled mortises and straight tenons, so here I tried straight mortises with angled tenons. The risk is weakened tenons since the grain runs out, but I can say from months of use the oak is plenty strong when the forces are distributed over four legs. It may be hard to see in the photos, but the shoulders are angled in both the x and y directions. Then the tenon protrudes "straight up" into the seat and perpendicularly from the plane that the should forms.

Now a tired dad can have a comfortable place to sit for games at bath time.

Gluing chuncky legs

Angled shoulders with perpendicular tenons

Drilling out mortises before finishing chopping with chisel

Dry-fitting legs

Dry-fitting legs for better view of tenon angles

Wedging the first leg

Wedging the remaining legs

Finishing with Danish oil