[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] This time on "The Woodsmith Shop," we're tackling two stool projects.

One provides a comfortable place to sit down, and the other gives you a leg up.

As always, we're inspired by some original projects that we're gonna take in a little different direction.

It's all coming up right now.

And it's time to start building.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- craftsman-quality stains and finishes since 1953.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

And by... [ Up-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You know, Chris, I think this will be a fun episode because we're building two projects that are very similar but that are different takes and slightly different functions.

This stool has two purposes.

You can step on it, and you can sit on it.

Whereas this stool is just for sitting.

Now, of the two, I favor this stool because it's just beautiful in its simplicity -- a slab top and three very graceful legs.

And the construction is simple as can be -- a round tenon and a mortise.

But it's durable, and it'll last.

Yeah, you know, that state construction is pretty traditional, and it does, it lasts the test of time.

But this style, I'll call this a shaker-style stepstool.

Has a little bit more going on.

And it kind of brings in some more traditional furniture building-type elements that we're used to.

You know, we have some angles for the sides.

We have some nice beveled treads on there.

And we also have some through-mortises.

But they're a little bit different than a standard through-mortise.

So I'm excited to show those.

So, two great projects that you may want to try.

The plans are available on our website -- WoodsmithShop.com I think Phil will go ahead and get us started with the top on the sitting stool.

Okay.

The seat for this first stool starts as a large glued-up blank.

Now, we're using walnut here, and it's gonna look really cool.

And the first things that you need to do is take care of a little layout, and it involves some pretty fun geometry.

The first step is to establish a baseline for creating that overall kind of rounded triangle shape.

To do that, I'm gonna use a large ruler.

And then because I'm working with Walnut, I'm gonna use a white colored pencil.

It's a lot easier to see those lines than using a regular pencil.

So I'll create a baseline that's 10 1/2 inches long.

And mark the end points, and that will form two points of our triangle.

Now I'm gonna take a beam compass, which, in this case, is a long wood ruler with a couple of sliding points on it so I can adjust the position of the points to match the radius of the arc that I want to create.

So I need to find our third point.

And if you remember back from your high school geometry, I'll set the pivot point on one of the end points.

Make a small arc, then do the same thing from the other side.

And now I have my three points for the triangle.

These are also gonna be the center points for drilling the holes that will hold the legs later on.

So you want to keep those marks.

Next, we want to create the overall shape.

For that, I'm gonna readjust the beam compass here for a 12-inch radius.

And all this information is provided in the plans.

So what I'm gonna do is start again with our corners and strike an arc on one side and then just work my way around the three points.

The next step, because I don't want these corners of the seat to be real sharp, I want to round them off a little bit.

So I'm gonna use a smaller compass here.

Then it's just a matter of blending those corners just by creating another set of arcs.

I really like this shape.

It's got a nice, pleasing look to it without being really hard and angular.

At this point, we can take the blank over to the band saw and cut it to shape.

♪♪ When you're standing at the band saw to make the cuts to bring the seat to its shape, you want to do so in a smooth, fluid motion.

A lot of starting and stopping is just gonna create a rough edge that's gonna be a lot harder to get smooth later on.

Now, speaking of which, the band saw is inevitably gonna leave some blade marks along this edge.

I used an edge sander to clean up those edges and round the corners.

But you could use a palm sander or even just a long piece of sandpaper on a flexible block.

Then, I wanted to add a few details.

On the top edge of the seat, I added a 3/8-inch round-over.

That softens the edge just enough so it's not gonna cut into your legs when you're sitting on the stool.

On the bottom face of the seat, I routed a pretty hefty chamfer here.

What that does is lighten the overall look of the seat without taking away any of its thickness, because we want those legs to anchor in a nice, thick seat.

That brings us right here to the drill press, where we want to drill the holes for the three legs that fit into the seat.

The key here is making sure that those legs are all drilled at a consistent six-degree angle.

Now, you can do that free hand if you want, but we've set up a simple jig for the drill press.

It's a plywood base and a top, and there's a spacer along the back edge that gives us our correct angle.

Now, because the seat has a curved edge, we can't just use a straight fence on the back.

So what we have here is a pair of dowel pins.

And those two cradle the seat and hold it in to position.

I've installed a one-inch Forstner bit and then set the depth stop to drill a one-inch-deep hole.

That's gonna be enough to lock those legs into place.

After drilling one hole, all I have to do is rotate the seat around, center it up under the bit, and keep drilling holes.

Then I can pass the seat off to Logan and Chris and have them make the legs.

The first step in creating our legs is to create the tenon on the end of each one.

Now, to do this, I've used a jig in the router table.

And the bit that I've used is a bowl-cutting bit.

So, rotating the leg in the jig, I can gently cut the tenon to exactly one inch.

Now, as I approach that diameter, I always want to make sure and go and check against the hole that we've previously drilled in the seat so that we sneak up to a perfect fit.

With the tenons done on the legs, it's time to head to the bench.

I went ahead and cut everything to final length, and I have my blank trapped between two dogs.

The first step in creating this round, tapered leg is to go ahead and cut the leg into an octagon.

In order to maintain a good round shape, we always want to go from square to octagon to round.

That'll help you maintain good, even cross-sections.

After turning our square leg into an octagon, I then proceeded to mark 1 1/4-inch round circle on the end of the leg.

That is a reference for me to plane to.

The one-inch round tenon up top will also be a reference to know when I'm getting close to that 1 1/4-inch diameter.

The center of the leg is going to be an inch and 5/8s.

And, as you can see, I've made a center mark so that I know where the apex of my tapers will begin and end.

The next step for me is to take my hand plane and taper each face on the top, and then I will rotate the leg until I have each of these phases tapered and meeting my reference points.

Once we have the leg into that tapered octagon, I then can proceed to round everything using the hand plane, a spokeshave, whatever you choose.

Now, it's kind of up to you how far you go with this.

If you'd like to, you can leave the tool markings and the facets in the leg.

That's an interesting look, and it will say, "This was done by hand."

Or, if you'd like, you can use a rasp, sandpaper, and scrapers and make it perfectly smooth so it looks like it came off a lathe.

That's up to you, I think, for my stool.

I'm gonna go ahead and leave it slightly faceted.

We get a lot of storage tips that come in through the magazine, whether it's using old baby food jars or yogurt containers.

And this one's kind of in that same vein.

We found that using these clear plastic Tupperware containers make great storage containers.

To keep them even more organized, we made this little box here.

It's got dadoes cut in the sides so the rims of the containers can just slide right in.

Makes everything really visible and easy to reach.

Now, we could just set this box on our bench top or cabinet, but, on the back, we created a French cleat here so we can mount the mounting strip to the wall.

And it can just hang right on our wall up and out of the way.

It's a great way to store the leftovers in your shop.

You know, just because Chris whittled the legs on that stool doesn't mean you couldn't turn them.

So, that's what I'm gonna do.

I have three leg blanks here, and I've started off by marking the center on the ends.

I'm gonna use a drive spur and pound that in one end on the center point.

Okay.

We'll get that in the lathe.

All right, so the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn this into a round blank.

I'm gonna do that with a ruffing gouge.

Then I'm gonna come back and lay out my tenon.

I'll use a set of calipers and a parting tool to go ahead and cut that tenon down to the right diameter.

Then I'll make it flat all the way to the end.

Then it's just a matter of turning it, the rest of the leg, to the shape I like.

Then I'll make the other two match that profile and sand them smooth.

♪♪ ♪♪ All right, there we go.

So now that I have this leg to a shape I like, I went ahead and sanded it and burnished it with some shavings at a high speed to really smooth it out.

Now I'll go ahead and use this as a template to create my other two legs.

Well, it's time to glue up our stool.

All the usual rules apply about glue-ups.

We want to apply glue to both the tenon and into the mortise.

Now, one thing I do want you to check, though -- make sure that your tenons are a nice, easy fit.

Not sloppy but not tight.

When the glue is applied, you have to pound them in, because if they're too tight, we really run the risk of splitting our seat.

♪♪ ♪♪ I'm gonna give it a little tap just to make sure that it's bottomed out.

And since it's one leg at a time, we can take our time and not be rushed.

So I'll do a final cleanup of the glue, and then it's gonna be time to let things dry, and then we'll need to level our legs out so our stool is nice and flat and even on the floor.

Our first stool project started with the top.

For the second one, we're gonna start with the two sides.

Now, while they end up being glued together as one L-shaped blank, we're gonna start with them separated for now so we can take care of some details.

The first of those takes place here at the table saw.

I cut a bevel along one end of each of the pieces.

Then I move the miter gauge to the other side, set up stop blocks, and then cut a matching bevel on the top edges of all of my pieces.

Our next step is to use this dado blade that I've installed to cut some notches on the top end of both of these side pieces.

What that's gonna do is hold some splines for the stretchers that are gonna connect these parts later on.

Now, the key here, though, is that, with a bevel on the top, the workpiece isn't gonna sit square.

So we have a beveled auxiliary face that's attached to the miter gauge fence.

That's gonna hold the workpiece in position so that I can line it up and then make a notch at each of the marks on the piece.

Once that's done, it's time for a little assembly.

Cutting the bevels and then the notches while the two halves of the sides are separate makes things a lot easier.

Now what we can do is to bring these together, glue them up.

I'm just gonna take some glue here, apply it to one edge.

Brush it out.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ As you bring these pieces together, you want to make sure that their bottom edges are perfectly aligned.

Then also make sure that the top, what's the outside face of the sides, is flush, as well.

Once the glue is dry and you've scraped away any excess, there are a few more details to take care of.

We're gonna cut a shallow taper on the front edge and on the back edge.

I did that at the band saw, then cleaned up those edges with a hand plane.

Then with the band saw, I also made a cutout along this bottom edge, and that'll create feet on the sides and gives the stool a more stable stance.

So now it's time to connect these two pieces with some stretchers.

So now that Phil has the two sides of the stepstool done, we can turn our attention to the stretchers that connect them.

And I've already cut those to size.

We have two different length ones.

we have longer ones for the bottom and shorter ones for the top.

And the ends are beveled at a five-degree angle.

So when the sides are sitting up, that angle matches.

To connect the stretchers with the sides, we're gonna insert a loose tenon.

But first we have to create a slot in the ends of each of these stretchers.

We'll do that over at the router table.

So to cut the slots in the end of our rails, we have two options, at least here at the router table.

The first would be to use a straight bit and then stand the workpiece on end and run it through.

But doing that process here at the router table -- probably not the best solution.

So instead, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use a bit called a slot cutter.

And it does what the name implies.

It cuts a slot.

So I'm gonna use a backer board on the miter gauge.

Then I'm gonna place my workpiece in front of that.

Then I'm gonna firmly hold it in place as I make a pass across the bit.

And it's gonna form the slot, then I'll just rotate the workpiece and cut the slot on the opposite end.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So now that we have all the slots cut in the end of our rails, we can go ahead and glue in the tenons.

Let's take a look at the tenons real quick.

The tenons are just pieces of hardwood that have been planed down in thickness.

In this case, it's 3/8 inch.

And they've been cut to size.

They're square on one edge.

The other edge has a complementary angle cut on them.

So it's a bevel that matches the rails and the tilt of the two sides.

So we can go ahead and glue these into place now.

And the biggest thing when we glue these in is just to make sure that the angle on the end is sticking outward, and we want it to be opposite of the shoulder on the rail.

♪♪ ♪♪ All right, now, once all the tenons are glued in and the glue's dry, we can go ahead and get the final assembly done.

All right.

So now that our stool is all glued together, really the only thing left to do is to wait for the glue to dry and take care of the treads.

Now, the treads are simply cut from a piece of stock.

We have two different sizes here.

We have a narrower, longer piece for the front tread.

Then we have a wider tread that's a little bit shorter, and that's for the top.

Now, the plans call for these to have a bullnose profile around three edges.

But with all the angles that are going on in this project, I think it'll be a little bit better if we cut a bevel along them.

So I'm gonna go ahead and clamp this in the vise and cut it.

All right, once I have all the bevels cut on the three edges of both treads, you can go and install them.

And that's simply done by driving a couple of screws up through the stretchers and into the treads.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Adding a sanding drum or two to your drill press is a great way to get even more from an already versatile tool.

What I like to use them for is to sand curved edges and work pieces or even templates like I'm working on here.

However, I've come across a few weaknesses in your standard sanding drum and a few solutions.

Now, the first is that, oftentimes, the sanding drum kits that you can get are pretty small diameter.

So when you're working with a large swooping curve like this, you'll end up with a scalloped or uneven edge.

And you definitely don't want that on something like a template.

So what you want to do is use the largest possible sanding drum that you can get.

Another thing that you can have is that you definitely need to recess the end of the sanding drum below the surface of your table.

That way, you can sand the entire edge of your workpiece without leaving a little lip at the bottom edge.

And then, finally, I found that some sanding drums, especially the budget ones, don't exactly have the tightest machining tolerances.

So once you get it going, you can notice that it ends up wobbling quite a bit.

And that leads to a lot of shaking when you're trying to sand it.

And it's not a good way to be able to get smooth, even curves.

Now, for the solutions.

What I've done is to make my own sanding drum.

much larger than what you can find.

I think this one's about four inches.

I started by gluing up layers of Baltic birch plywood and then using a wing cutter to cut it perfectly round.

I wrapped it with some adhesive-back sandpaper.

That way, once it wears out, just peel it off, put on a new strip.

To drive this sanding drum, I used some epoxy and put in a steel rod.

Now, I left the rod with a little stub on the bottom end, and that's to help with the stability.

And that plays into the next part, which is this auxiliary table.

Now, it's a large piece of MDF to support my workpiece.

It has a whole in the middle of it so that I can recess the sanding drum.

Again, so I can get the whole edge.

But what this table also has... ...is an insert on the bottom face.

That insert fits into the replaceable insert opening in this particular type of drill press table.

That way, I can register the sanding drum table really easily.

On the top side.

I installed a bronze bushing, and that bushing accepts the stub from the sanding drum.

So that holds the bottom end in place so while it's spinning, it's not gonna wobble around.

Setting it up goes pretty quick.

Just drop it in place.

Fit the sanding drum in, lower the chuck.

Tighten it up.

And set the stop.

What I have now is an efficient way to smooth and shape large curves quickly and efficiently.

Our two stools are ready for finish.

What I'm going to use is a polyurethane wiping varnish.

The reason I'm using a polyurethane wiping varnish is that, because this is a stepstool, it's gonna see a little foot traffic on it, and I want more protection than a thin oil can provide.

To apply the polyurethane wiping varnish, I'm just going to use a simple foam brush.

I'll saturate all the surfaces, wipe it off, let it dry thoroughly, and then come back later and apply a second coat.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ One more coat of oil, and I'll be finished.

These are two great projects with something to teach you.

And you'll have two great furniture projects for your home.

It doesn't take much to transform an existing plan and make it your own.

It could be something as simple as going with some new materials, maybe adding a couple of different details.

Or you could be working with the tools that you already have in your shop.

Say you don't have a lathe and not into turning.

You could use a block plane and some spoke shaves and create a faceted leg like on this stool.

And that's what's important, is to take a project, make it your own, and to learn something new in the process.

If you'd like to find the plans for these two stool projects, they're at our website -- WoodsmithShop.com.

It's also the place where you'll find other woodworking plans, projects, and great ideas to help you become a better woodworker.

And when you're done having fun in your shop, you can join us right back here in the Woodsmith Shop.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Phil: If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition, with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free "Woodsmith" book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD.

Or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- craftsman-quality stains and finishes since 1953.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

And by... [ Up-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪