The Footstool

A few weeks ago, Caryl bought a footstool from an antiques shop.  She recently challenged me to duplicate it -- she thinks she knows where she might be able to sell a few, and if not, it'd still keep me off the streets and give us something else upon which to rest our feet.  So I took some measurements and got cracking.  (Lots of pictures this time!)

The original footstool, after Caryl modified it with a circular saw.

The basic design is two ends and two cross-pieces.  Okay, now that I've stated the obvious, let's look at the details.  The ends have a peaked arch cut away to form the legs, and the side edges have a gentle concave curve; there's a similar curve on the bottom edge of the cross-pieces.  The cross-pieces fit in the ends using bridle joints and are fixed in place with dowels through the endpieces' edges.  The cross-pieces are 3.5"x15", and the ends are 10"x10".  Okay, so the cross-pieces are begging to be made from a 1x4, and the ends -- well, I still have plenty of the 1x10 that I've used in other projects.  Okay, there is the little detail that 1x10 isn't really 10" wide, but I can live with a footstool base that's 9" and change instead of 10" tall.  I haven't even marked the cuts yet, and I've already made two changes:  Besides making it shorter, I'm using pine instead of the original's oak.

Just as a quarter-pounder burger doesn't have ¼ of a pound
of beef after cooking, a 1x10 isn't 10" wide after drying.

Wouldn't it be great if I could cut the slots for the bridle joints with one pass of a powertool?  Not going to happen.  My dado blade isn't big enough to cut away 3.5".  But I can cut as much of the slot as I can and then lay the stock flat on the saw's table and gently, gently advance it into the dado blade until the leading edge of the blade cuts as far as the desired slot should go.  Then flip the piece over and repeat on the other face.  The resulting peaked material in the slot is all that needs to be removed by handsaw.

We had a couple of dowels laying around, and I selected the ½" diameter birch.  I cut eight 2" pieces off the dowel.  So I rigged the Shopsmith as a horizontal borer and fitted a ½" bit.  I didn't want to compress the slots while boring, so I slipped some scrap 1x2s into the slots.  It was during this process that I discovered that I'd made a mistake.  I'll give you a hint:  look at the photos and pay attention to the direction of the grain -- because I didn't.  What I did notice was that in the resting position, the end of the drill bit looked farther away from the stock on the second piece than on the first.  Just a little bit less than an inch farther away.  Oops.  It's now necessary to cut a fresh piece off of the 1x10.  Embarrassing, but no big deal.

With both pieces resting against the fence and against the
clamped-down mitre gauge, we see three indicators that I erred:
One dimension is shorter, the other is longer, and the slots don't line up.

Next I marked reference lines on the 1x4 cross-pieces to line them up on the end-pieces.  (Rather than cutting grooves into the cross pieces, as on the original, I cut the slots in the end-pieces wide enough to accept the full width of the 1x4.)  One side went in with finger-pressure, and the other required gentle tapping with a wooden mallet.  In the photos, note that I'm still using scrap 1x2s to keep the slots from being compressed -- I was paranoid about squeezing the wood and breaking it.

As it turned out, it was expansion pressure that snapped the wood.  When I finished cutting those slots by hand, I missed a small nodule of wood in one of the slots.  As I tapped the cross-piece with the mallet, the piece rode the nodule and pushed out.  Well, I'll deal with that later.  The point of this process is to let me mark where to drill on the cross-pieces.  Several months ago I read someone's project description, and he mentioned using a Forstner bit and hammer to mark the desired place to drill.  I copied the technique.  (In hindsight, I suppose I could've also used the ½" brad-point bit).  I also marked the slots and the corresponding ends of the cross-pieces so that any minor imprecision wouldn't matter when fitting the pieces back together again at the end.  I then set the Shopsmith up as a drill press and lined the tip of the brad-point bit with the nicks in the wood made by the Forstner bit.

I then removed the errant nodule and, just to be extra cautious, cut very light grooves into the tighter-fitting crosspiece for the bridle joint.  Then I glued the broken piece and set it to cure overnight.  I pondered whether having the grain run vertically would've prevented the break.  Maybe it would've, or maybe it just would've made it harder to re-glue after the break.

There goes my goal of not using any glue in this project.

Day 2.  Out comes the bandsaw.  I decided to cut the curve on both cross-pieces at the same time.  I used painter's tape to hold the two pieces together and made a single pass through the bandsaw.  I'm sure a couple of dabs of hot-melt glue would've been better.  Nothing went wrong with the cut, but I had to make sure I was holding both pieces to keep the stack rigid.  For the end-pieces, I cut one end and then used it as a template to mark the cuts for the other end.  I also decided to try relief cuts.  None of the curves were particularly tight, but was nice knowing that the bandsaw wasn't going to fight me.  I think I might make a habit of using relief cuts.

Then comes the sanding.  I used the belt sander to smoothen the convex curve cuts and to give a preliminary sanding to the faces and straight edges.  (In one of the photos you can see that not only do I have 1x2 spacers in the bridle slots to avoid compression, I'm also using a clamp to keep the belt sander from pulling the slots open.)

Then I used the drum sander to smoothen the concave curve cuts -- well, as much as I could.

     

The drum sander, obviously, didn't fit all the way to the apex of the peaked arch.  So I did as much as I could with the drum sander and finished the arch by hand.  I have a bucket full of "sliver scraps" that keep coming in handy.  I grabbed a piece of 2x4 that's about 3/32" thick and used that as a sanding block.  (Yes, I just used the word "about" when specifying down to 32nds of an inch -- it's more than 1/16" but less than 1/8".)

Then I used a palm sander to take care of the final sanding and rounding of sharp edges.  As much as I like using the belt sander, I can change grit on the palm sander much faster.  And then came time to stain the pieces.  The butcher paper isn't to protect the table; it's to protect the footstool.  The table top has accumulated enough bits of paint and other detritus from various projects that I didn't want transferring into the footstool.  I started with what I thought was going to be a dark cherry stain, but when I saw the wood was absorbing more red than I wanted (especially the cross-pieces), I brought in some basic brown to darken it up.

Assembly was pretty straight-forward.  Most of the dowel pins went in with firm pressure, and three of them required urging from the wooden mallet.

And now the base is complete.  No glue used except for the repair to the broken end-piece.  No fasteners except for the dowel pins.  Ta-da!

But the project's not done yet.  A footstool kinda needs someplace to put your feet.

We have several scrap pieces of 3/8" plywood leftover from building the chicken coop.   I selected a piece that's bigger than I needed and that was (and I can't emphasize the importance of this enough) still flat.  Sure, it's teal blue on one side and white on the other.  So what?  It's going to be covered with a cushion and swede.  If the small part that's visible from the underside actually bugs me, then I'll hit it with some dark spraypaint.  The original footstool had an oaken top beneath the cushion and leather, so I guess using plywood makes the third planned departure from the original.

First I cut it down to the approximate size and then, using the one edge that I knew was straight, I trimmed it down to the final dimensions with 90° angles.  No need for sanding toward a finish, so I hand-sanded the edges and rounded the sharp corners to protect the swede.

I didn't want to screw the top directly to the base for two reasons.  One, I wouldn't be able to access the screw heads to remove the top for re-upholstering if needed.  Two, after putting the cushion on the top, I wouldn't be able to access the screw heads to fasten it in the first place.  I suppose I could've used pocket holes and screwed from underneath -- and if I had a pocket hole jig I just might've.  Instead I found a 1x2 that wasn't too long and ripped it into something resembling a pair of 1x1s.  I pre-drilled the 1x1s and marked each 1x1, cross-piece, and the top for re-assembly after all holes were drilled.  I selected 1¼" screws to fasten the 1x1s to the cross-pieces and 1" screws to fasten the 1x1s to the top.

After pre-drilling the 1x1s, I screwed in the 1¼" screws just enough that the tips were poking out the other end, and then I squeezed the 1x1 into the cross piece, marking the place to pre-drill the pilot holes in the cross-piece.  Since I was drilling by hand, I put some electrical tape on the drill bit to make sure I didn't drill all the way through.  I then repeated this process for the top, using the rigid base to make all four drill marks at the same time.  The 1" screws seemed to hold the top just fine, but to give them a little extra bite into the top, I grabbed a 5/16" bit and provided enough countersink that the screws should have a firm hold of the top without poking through into the cushion.  (It was the fear of poking through into the cushion that led me to use 1" screws instead of 1¼" screws.)  I screwed it all together, and the top was done.

Now for the cushion and upholstery.  Caryl found a small pillow that was just about the exact dimensions.  Too easy.  And she found some nice swede  Out comes the staple gun.  A quick reminder of which side has the screw holes, and she knocked it out in just a few minutes.

Screw the top back on, and we have ourselves a new footstool.

Okay -- Lessons Learned.

The joints.  The original used bridle joints, and so I did too.  I already discussed that I couldn't do the full slot using my dado blade.  Well, it turns out that when I finished it by hand I cut too far.  Going back into some pictures I didn't include here, it's obvious that I didn't mis-mark the depth of the cut; I cut past the pencil line.  On the next one (assuming the potential buyer is interested) I'll use a half-lap joint.  That I could do it entirely with the dado blade is argument enough, but there's more:  I'd be less likely to cut too deep, and if I did it would be hidden by the joint.  Yes, the lower set of the dowel pins would be purely decorative, but it'd hardly be the first time someone put something decorative on furniture!

Speaking of the dowel pins.  When I cut the dowel pins, I determined the length without considering the curvature of the end-pieces.  On the top dowel pins, it's no big deal.  The bottom dowel pins should be 1/4"-3/8" shorter.

The ends of the cross-pieces.  In the original they're beveled; in mine they're simply perpendicular.  Beveled definitely looks better.

The arches.  The arches in the end-pieces form the legs.  I took my arches quite a bit higher than on the original.  That's no big deal, and I think I like the higher arch.  What I may do next time is use a rounded arch with a radius at the top of the arch at least that of the drum sander.  Or maybe I'll decide that the peaked arch looks better and deal with the minor inconvenience of smoothing the peak of the arch by hand.

The direction of the grain.  It's clear that having vertical grain would've almost certainly been smarter.  If I continue to use 1x10 for stock then I'll have to accept having a narrower base.  I suppose I could start with 1x12 and rip it down, but I don't think there'll be much of an issue with having a 9" base instead of a 10" base.

Ground Hog Day, AGAIN

If you are a loyal follower of the blog, you will remember back to Ground Hog Day 2015.  In days prior to the illustrious holiday, I was diligently working on the Oodalolly Egg House in a T-shirt and gym shorts.  It was dry, sunny, and 65'.  ANYONE from the Midwestern part of this country knows that you do not gets days like that in January without paying for it. Last year, on February 1st, we were cleaning up from an ugly snowstorm that left us with an insane amount of snow, howling winds, and unforgiving temperatures that bottomed out and made work outside impossible.

Fast forward to January of 2016. 

The end of January was a well deserved gift.  While the weather hasn't been terrible this year, the dull endless cold days were quickly getting old.  People were getting tired of the snow, melt, cold cycle and the seemingly endless (albeit short) days filled with shades of grey and raw umber.  January 30th and 31st were sheer bliss for those of us itching for Spring.  Something I have been doing since the beginning of October.  The last weekend of January was going to be kissing the 50'F mark with only light, if not, non existent winds.  But if you listened carefully you could hear it.

What was "it"?  Was it the mating call of southerly migrating birds? Nope.  The sounds of twitterpated wildlife? Nope.  The overwhelming stink of skunks emerging early from winter hibernation? Well yes, but that isn't a sound is it?

The sound was a general hum of activity.  People were out and about almost in a crazed state.  But it wasn't due to the stunning weather.  They weren't out washing salt and the grime of the dirt roads off their trucks to discover their true color, long forgotten.  They weren't breaking out the grills, out playing with the kids, or joy riding with the top down.  No, they were gassing up, tuning up, stocking up, and matching up misplaced gloves and mittens.  Why? 

Because for the past week forecasters had been prognosticating a huge winter storm event for the Midwest.  It started innocently enough as a slip of the fingers by a long range model operator.  The storm hadn't even left the coast of Japan, but media were latching on to it like a Doberman with a raw steak.  Once it was out in view of the general public, local forecasters had no choice but to acknowledge the possibility.  Some did it with gentle grace, like informing the groom that the bride was running a few minutes late. Others jumped in whole hog and rode the hype train for all it was worth, like an exuberant frat boy announcing to a Daytona Beach Spring break party that a truck full of beer just overturned in the parking lot. By the weekend, the models were finally able to use data pulled from the west coast and come to a more common agreement to what was going to happen. 

It was going to be tight, 50 miles could mean the difference between getting rain or shoveling 12+ inches of snow.  We are not a fan of this type of model guidance. It drives us nuts.  A storm can swing hundreds of miles between model runs, rendering forecasts useless.  None-the-less, people knew something was coming, and if that meant being stuck inside with family, by golly, they weren't going to be stuck there without bread, milk, pop tarts, and beer.  (It's funny to watch people stocking up.)

Yes, I was out there too.  I was not, however, shopping for food.  I was out for fabric for a project.  (That's another post.)I was in and out of the city as fast as I could be.  After all, this place is stocked, after I baked bread of course.

February 1st brought about one of the most electric, dynamic sunrises I have seen in a while.  The photo doesn't do it justice.The weather was going to be another stunning one.  The girls had been out all weekend enjoying a landscape that they hadn't seen for quite a while.  They even managed to find a few leaves of green clover uncovered from the last melt.  The dehydrated flattened peeper frog proved to be an especially treasured find and made for a grand and LOUD game of "it's MINE! You can't have it!"

I made sure they spent the whole day outside, because I knew what dawn would bring.  They wouldn't like it.

They didn't. And Don't. That night winds screamed from the EAST at 46 mph.  We had sleet, freezing rain, snow, thunder and lightning while it snowed heavily. Then we had more snow, and the winds continued to scream from the north. When the power went out and all the UPS systems started beeping like mad,  I woke up to this.

  Every single window in the house, all sides completely covered in ice and snow.  The whole house was caked in it.

  As the wind blew, the siding would groan and great sheets of the stuff would loudly break off and come crashing to the ground.  The coop was encased as well as the run.  The birds were so confused.  They lined up at the run door in their usual exuberant manner.  When the door was opened, they looked out, turned around and went back in the coop!  Apparently it wasn't the door to Oz like it was the day before and they were going to go back inside and try again later. I cannot say that I blame them.

Is there anything more sorrowful than the plaintive crow of a rooster echoing off the bowled walls of a snow filled valley?  Not if you're a chicken keeper.  Every crow goes straight to your spine, like when you are crib training a baby and you cannot give in.  Each cock-a-doodle-do screams, "we want OUT!" "Let us out!" "We can't reach the door knob!". "We're BOOOOORED!" "We're plotting to overthrow the world!"

Well maybe that's just what I HEAR.  But I know they WANT out.  I want to LET them out, but know that wet birds, and heat zapping and howling winds, and cold nights do not mix.  They're just going to have to wait a couple of days.  They have plenty of room, plenty of toys, snacks and food.  And The Boy goes out and pesters them several times a day (steals their precious orbs while he's out there too.)

8.5 inches of snow on top of ice, with drifts 14-42 inches high.  It was a compression snow and very wet.  The kind that goes into the snow blower as snow and comes out of the chute like a squishy from the Quickie Mart.  If left more than a few minutes, it would freeze into an immovable mass of ice.  It was at this point the neighbor kindly plowing the road with his tractor piled a 2 foot high wall of ice at the bottom of our drive.  That needed removed quickly.  This is the time the small tractor decided to throw a chain from one of the back tires. Too cold to put it back on, I went to put it in the barn, and managed to get it stuck in a 24" drift.  I went in to get the tractor to haul it out.  It started up and immediately ran out of gas.  I refilled it and started it back up.  Nope.  The battery died.  Ugh... I'm with the chickens.  I'm going back inside and I'll look for Oz in the morning.

COME ON SPRING!