Stop me if you've heard this one: A guy walks into a bar and he says… MicroJig. Maker of the GRR-RIPPER. Work safer. Work smarter. I'm gluing together two pairs of these ¾" thick boards. I want the seat to also be an inch and a half
thick so I'm gluing together some wider boards. To square these up, I'm going to start by
jointing one edge using this jig on my table saw.
I want the legs to be square, so I'm going
to set my rip fence to the width of this board. And rip these into 1 ½" wide strips. All of the legs are going to need to tilt
in two directions, this way and this way, which means I need to make a compound miter cut on all the ends. And that just means I'm going to tilt my blade to 7° and I'm going to tilt my miter gauge to 7°. You could also do this on a compound miter
saw. So that will let the leg lean in two directions. The next cut is going to be the critical one because that determines the length of the
legs and I need them all to be exact.
So what I think I'm going to do is gang these up, clamp them together, and try to cut them all
at the same time. These legs look like a perfect opportunity
for me to screw up which sides I drill the holes in. So I'm going to set them up here and mark which sides the holes go on so I don't mess it up.
To make the holes I need to tilt my drill
press table to that same 7° Each leg gets a hole that's 10" from the bottom
on one side, and 9" from the bottom on the adjacent side. And the same goes for the top. The confusing part is to make sure this goes
in the right way in my drill press so that the angle of the hole is parallel with the floor. I hope all that made sense! I've clamped on a stop block to my fence that's 10" from the drill bit so I should be able to make all of these the same.
I've also set up a depth stop on the drill press so that the bit will stop halfway through each leg. With all 4 of those made, I can move my stop block over to the 9" mark. By the way, I sure am glad I have a drill
press table! And I'll repeat the process and make all the
9" holes which will be slightly below the previous
holes. Now I need to re-position my stop block to
this side to cut the upper holes. I can't just flip the boards around or the
holes would be going the wrong directions. I think I'm going to clamp these boards down too so they don't slide when I try to drill the holes. I screwed this piece of plywood to my workbench
so I can set the bottoms of the legs against it.
I've cut these two pieces of plywood to that
same 7° angle and I'll screw this one in. I want the bottom span of the legs to be 13" so I'll set this other angled piece to the
13" mark. Now I can cut the dowels to size by test-fitting
them. I can tell that this one is too long. The way I'm approaching this is just a lot
of trial and error. There's a good fit. It just takes time and you just got to be patient. But before I glue it together I want to round
over the edges of the legs on my router. Another thing I did was label all these dowels so it will be a lot easier to set this back up. I'm putting a much smaller roundover on the
three inside edges.
I'm going to drill one pocket hole in the
top of each leg to attach them to the seat. Now it's just a matter of gluing all these
dowels in. It's a good thing I marked them. It makes this a lot easier. I've brought it out here to my table saw because
I know it's a perfectly flat surface and I can check to see if there is any wobble
to it, but it looks good. I'll glue these three boards together for
the seat. I'm going to make it the same diameter as
the width of the legs.
I'm finishing this by wiping on a few coats
of Danish Oil. I thought it would be a good idea to do it
now before I attach the seat. I let this dry overnight and it's got a great
look and feel to it. I'm really becoming a fan of that Danish Oil. Because these dowels are in the way, my drill doesn't fit properly into these holes to put the pocket screws in.
So I'm going to use this funky angle attachment that Todd Clippinger sent me a couple months ago. I'll give this one final test on my table
saw and see if it's level. And it is! It's always funny when things like that surprise me. Despite the fact that this bar stool is really
a simple design and there's not a lot of components to it, it really turned out to be one of the most
challenging projects I've made in a while.
Of course, a strong challenge now and then
is good for the soul! If you'd like to challenge yourself with this
bar stool, check in the description for a free set of plans. My best advice for you is to take careful
measurements and double-check every piece before you cut it. I guess you could do that on all projects, right? I think it's especially important on this project. Hey, in case you didn't know, I've got a second channel called Mere Minutes that you might want to check out and subscribe to. It's a more personal channel a more chit-chat kind of channel. Chit-chat. I have two shows on that channel: I have Mere Minutes, which is my weekend vlog where I give updates on this week's project and I talk about other stuff. And I've got the "Ask Me-Mo" show which is becoming very popular for which you can submit your own questions and I will sort-of answer them, like this: In England they say "rebate".
In America we say "rabbet". In Australia they say "wallaby". And of course, if you're new to this channel, I'd love to have you subscribe. I post brand new videos every Friday. My goal with Woodworking for Mere Mortals is to provide you genuine value, inspiration, and community. Thanks for watching everybody. I really appreciate your support..