Master Carpenter's Footstool

hey thanks for clicking on the video thumbnail to learn how to make a master carpenter's footstool like this and fyi this ain't hgtv boys and girls so if you're expecting to see someone who's more concerned about how their outfits put together then the project they're working on you're probably going to be disappointed on the other hand if you're watching to learn instead of expecting to be taught i think you'll find this video well worth your time due to the epic length of this complete master class build video i added an extensive chapter list to the video's description to help viewers navigate step by step through the entire build process this footstool upgrade project has been on the back burner here at next level carpentry for over four years so i'm excited to finally get to it the goal from the beginning was to replace this old work worn hickory work stool that i made way back in april of 1996 with a newer classier one made of ash and mahogany the original concept of the video was to make a connection between the digital job site which was my first youtube channel and next level carpentry and to make that connection i produced a video that shows how to produce this footstool using trimble sketchup so you can watch that video for an in-depth explanation of the proportions and design of this stool the sketchup model from that video serves as a dynamic set of free plans for these stools so feel free to download it from the 3d warehouse through a link in the video description and use it as you see fit i do hope to have project plans for this stool available at some point and when i do you'll be able to find a link to those plans in the video description as well the main takeaway from the video and the most important design feature of a master carpenter's footstool is to make sure that the footstool's footprint is both longer and wider than the footstool's top that feature makes this stool stable so you don't take a tumble while working if you try this with a typical stool that has a top that overhangs its legs and will suddenly flip and violently transfer you from a standing position to a painful city position and if you don't believe me just ignore this admonition and see for yourself the other feature that sets this footstool design apart is worthy of a master carpenter is the fact that no metal fasteners are used to hold it together and make it strong during this master class you'll see how to lay out and cut the wedge tenon joinery that has held this stool together for 25 years it's still going strong and i think that you'll see this type of joinery is totally doable and looks a lot more difficult than it is now that you've seen the what and the why let's get into the how and how for this footstool starts as most woodworking projects do with some boards go figure because this is next level carpentry and not ikea i don't start by making individual parts that get packed tightly into a thin box with cheap and flimsy hardware and a set of lousy instructions for assembly instead the first steps here are to mill these unwieldy pieces into pieces that are flat straight and true before making them into footstool parts fyi i've got so much lumber here not because i plan on making a whole bunch of mistakes but i'm going to make a batch of stools while i'm at it although the video will focus on the one that's made out of mahogany and ash that you saw in the video thumbnail for each stool i need one piece 10 inches by 24 inches for the top two pieces 11 and a half inches by about 16 inches for the legs and two pieces inch and 3 4 by about 25 inches long for the rails all these pieces need to be three quarters of an inch thick the tray is about 7 inches by 24 inches and can be made out of sheet goods for practicality or solid wood for tradition and aesthetics for a better idea of how much wood it takes to make one of these stools this piece of four quarter inch thick clear vertical grain douglas fir is a little less than eight inches wide and a little over eight feet long with a bit of careful planning lay out cutting and glue up it's about enough wood to make the top legs and rails for one foot stool since the footstool i made for the video is two-toned it's a little more involved to make the basic pieces for it if you're like me and not lucky enough to have pieces that are wide enough or flat enough to make into a footstool i'll show you some of the millwork magic that i use to make these unwieldy pieces in the pieces that are wieldy enough for footstool parts for viewers that are either lucky or uninterested you can just skip ahead in the video to the point where all these pieces are all flattened out and ready to be cut into footstool parts because these ash boards aren't wide enough for the top i've got to embigging them by cutting and gluing to get the 10 inch by 24 inch size i need for the top at almost 12 inches this beautiful slab of mahogany is wide enough for the legs but it's so twisted that i have to first make it flat enough to use so to start out i'm going to show you how to use a planer sled to make perfectly flat pieces out of this mahogany propeller if this piece was a bit wider i could first rip it down the middle flatten the two narrower pieces and then just glue them back together but as it is i don't have quite enough width to make sure that i can get a good clean glue joint and maintain the overall width of the piece i need for the legs so that's why i'm resorting to the planar sled plus you'll learn another way for flattening wide pieces when your options are limited in case you don't know a planer sled is nothing more than a piece of flat stable material that's wider and longer than the piece you're trying to straighten i store my planer sled on little brackets on the shop wall so that it doesn't get distorted leaning up against the wall or laying on an uneven surface i made this one out of an lvl beam sometime back and based on its performance and stability i highly recommend the material if you decide to make a planar sled out of an lvl beam after watching this video i can tell you that because they start out as framing lumber it takes some attention to true them up you can see by the unevenness here these marks where i had to flatten out lumps and bumps that occur in the beam from laminations in the material i did some sanding i squared up the edges trued up the ends and then gave it a couple coats of varnish and the varnish helps keep moisture from getting in and out helps keep it flat and straight when it's stored high on the wall in a relatively dry shop some people might think that that extra fuss for a planer sled is a waste of time but to me this is like another piece of equipment in my shop and it serves as an extension and an improvement or an upgrade to my thickness planer that's well worth the time effort and money that i spent making it while using a planer sled is pretty simple getting it set up can be a bit tricky the first consideration you have to take into account is the material thickness that you're working with and the thickness you want to end up with in this case i want to end up with pieces that are three quarters of an inch thick and the material i'm starting off with is 15 16 of an inch so i've got 3 16 of an inch of extra material to remove the twist and normally when using a planer sled i want to keep the material as long as possible when it goes through the planer but because the twist in this board is so bad i've got to cut these pieces to their rough length first because i'm making two stools like this i need four legs 16 inches long and rather than being able to cut a piece 64 inches long and straighten that out or even two pieces 32 inches long i'm going to cut four at 16 inches to make sure that i can get them flattened out i hope my explanation here makes sense because ultimately what i'm doing is cutting the pieces as long as i can while making sure that none of them have more than 3 16 of an inch twist in them you can see here that this piece probably has three quarters of an inch or more twist in it and it's only four feet long the twist varies from board to board and even at only 16 inches long the twist is pretty drastic you can see by the way this piece rocks that it's the worst of the four pieces but keep in mind that the amount of material that needs to be removed to take the twist out of a board is half of the total twist so i'm feeling pretty good that i'll be able to flatten this piece out and maintain the three-quarter inch final thickness the first responsible step for milling rough lumber is always to make sure the surface is clean i use a sharpened putty knife and a brush to remove any dirt grit or sand that might be embedded in the surface then i follow up by adding squiggle marks to both faces of all the boards to keep track of the flattening and straightening process as i go through the different steps mahogany is generally regarded as a very stable wood but this piece has been mistreated for its entire life which led to it getting warped and me wanting to make sure that it's clean before running it through the planer it also makes me eager to see this beautiful mahogany come to life after seeing it kicked around the shop for so many years because the twist and distortion in each piece is different i'll set them up individually on the planer sled the sled is long enough that i can do all four pieces at once but i want to make sure each piece is set up so that i can flatten it while removing a minimum amount of material i want to make sure that if the piece has a cup to it like this one does and i put the cup side down because then i can shim it flat on just two points if the convex side is down then it's going to rock more directions and i have to use more shims to straighten it out this way i can just shim two corners like i already mentioned to remove the twist from a piece i divide the total twist by two i'll be using feather shims to hold these pieces securely in place and the quickest way i know to divide the amount of twist by two is to mark the total twist on one shim divide that amount by two transfer that mark to a second shim and then insert one shim from each end on opposite corners of the piece with those pencil marks as a guideline it's very simple to get the piece oriented so that i'm removing half of the twist from the two opposing corners because if i just shim it one direction the one corner of the piece will get thin twice as fast and on the pieces with more warp they would be too thin to be usable in the end and once i'm happy with the position of the shims so that the piece is sitting firmly on the sled i'll tack the shims in place using little brad nails and then screw a stop block at each end of the piece to keep it from shifting while it's going through the planer later with those measures taken the last thing i do is use hot melt glue to secure the work piece to the stop blocks so that nothing shifts as it's going through the planer or while i'm handling the planer sled as an aside notice that i apply the hot melt glue to the work piece and the stop blocks and not from the work piece to the planer sled this just makes cleanup easier and extends the life of the sled and once the glue cools it'll hold everything stable during multiple passes of the sled through the planer but because i applied it between the work piece the stop block and the shims the whole thing is easy to remove when i'm done planing i repeat the process of placing shimming and securing the pieces as i make my way down the planer sled so that i can flatten all four pieces on one planer sled setup i've got to crowd the pieces together a little bit and for the piece that has the most twist in it i simply draw a reference mark across two shims and then adjust the shims so that the reference mark is the same distance from each end of the board by putting a second pencil mark on one of the shims in the exact position where the board is stable and equalized you can see that the amount of planing it'll take to flatten even this most twisted piece is about an eighth of an inch so i should be able to achieve a full three-quarter inch thickness in the flattened piece obviously the process is complicated by the fact that i've got to flatten four individual pieces rather than just one or two but it shows the versatility of a long planar sled and some of the issues you're likely to encounter when flattening wide boards that are twisted and with that bit of setup and rigmarole i'm ready to plane all four of these pieces twist free and proud at the same time now that these individual pieces are all set and secured onto the planer sled it's time to set up the thickness planer to flatten these out as you can see i've got infeed and outfeed rollers set up here so that this piece slides easily through the planer coming and going and if you don't have roller stands or the luxury of roller stands you could use a shorter planer sled three or four feet long and do these pieces either one or two at a time and avoid the necessity of those rollers but because i have them i'll get this whole thing planed at the same time the rollers are set up to a height so the um that the sled passes over the platen uh nice and smooth it's not rocking either way either on the infeed side or the outfeed side the outfeed roller is set up just a little bit high so it puts a little bit of up pressure on the last piece as it comes out and that is an effort to minimize the amount of snipe i get on the end of the last piece because of the thickness of the planer sled and the amount of twist in the pieces etc is a whole bunch of variables i don't use the depth gauge on the planer but rather i send this through with the planer head the cutter head raised up over the last piece and what you'll see me do is start the planer and then gradually lower the cutter head until the feed rollers and the cutter head engage this last piece and i'll turn it just a little bit more so that it's taking a shaving of about a thirty second of an inch off the last piece then i pick up the whole sled bring it back around and then send it through at that setting that way i'm cutting off a little bit on the first pass keeping it to a minimum without having to do a bunch of measuring and what would amount to guesswork anyways to get the cutter head set this is noisy so you'll just see me going through these actions but that explanation is what you see me doing even though the harvey gyro air g 700 dust processor that i use is the world's quietest dust collector the noise from the planer prevents any meaningful dialogue during the planing process so what you see me doing here is taking sequential light passes on these pieces until each one is flat and i know that they're flat because all the squiggle marks are gone and i've got a nice clean flat plain surface on each of the four twisted mahogany pieces in this panning shot of the pieces after the first pass through the thickness planer you can see how the cut varies from one piece to the next depending how much twist is in that board the first two have minimal planing on the corners which would be the high corners from the twist and the third piece has a big planed patch because the twist in that piece was so radical and you can see in the last piece how less twist means less planing on the first pass after three passes i had to remove the most twisted piece from the planer sled because i'm right down to three quarters of an inch and i still need a couple more passes to clean up the rest of the pieces but that's okay because now the twist is removed from one face of the piece another couple light passes finishes up the other three pieces so that they're all flat on one side and now the work of the planer sled is done because each one of these legs is flat on one face to finish up the milling process i'll flip them over until the other side which still has a twist in it is flattened out and then i'll flip one more time to this side to clean up the last of the little rough patches and the snipe that's on these pieces in this handheld shot you can see that each end of each of these pieces has a bit of snipe on it but i've got enough thickness left that i can clean that up after flattening the other side in hindsight if i had to do this over again i would have added pieces of scrap in front of and behind the first and the last pieces and in between each of the pieces in the middle and that scrap would have really minimized the amount of snipe that i have to deal with at this point and i'll keep that in mind for future projects where i'm doing multiple short pieces on the long planer sled nevertheless i remove the remaining three pieces from the sled and remove the shims and blocks from each piece so that you can see that the bottom face still has a twist but when i flip the pieces over and drop them on the table the plane face is perfectly flat and making one flat face on each of these pieces is the goal of the planar sled process because this mahogany plank was so twisted i have very little margin of error to finish milling them to their final thickness of three quarters of an inch so i'll take extra measures to do the job i start the extra measures by registering off a flat face to join an edge straight and true and then rip the opposite edge parallel on the table saw before adding snipe strips to each side you know i think i just invented a new word snipe strips and you heard it here first on next level carpentry now i attached the long wood strips with screws into the waist portion of the work piece so they stay put but don't damage the piece these sacrificial strips will level the cutter head of my dw735 thickness planer so sniping quits before the work piece gets planed and leaves the flat twist free snipe free surface on the wide mahogany legs that i'm after to install these strips so that they work properly i laid the flat surface of the work piece down on my workbench and then place the strip down on the table top as well this aligns one edge of the snipe strip with the flat side of the work piece then i use a snappy bit that pilots and countersinks holes for small screws that hold the strips to the work piece notice that i'm driving the screws in the top and the bottom of the work piece so that the screw holes will get cut off with the waste later in the build process you can see how the pieces behave with strips installed and because the snipe strips have parallel edges they accentuate the amount of twist left in one face of each of these pieces this piece is the one with the most twist and you can see that a little bit of twist is still in the piece i'm going to see if i can get away with it but i think i may need to start all over because this one is probably going to end up being a problem child somewhere along the way but i'm going to run it through with the rest of the batch to try my luck because i've got quite a bit of thickness planing to do for this footstool build i decided to switch to new edges on the knives in my dw735 thickness planer so i grab a t30 torx bit out of my index pop off the cover remove the internal dust chute and go about the knife swap out process i won't bore you with the whole thing because i did a video a while back showing how to swap out the knives plus a bit of extended tlc that these planers need from time to time and you can see that video by clicking the link in the upper right hand corner of your screen if you don't already know i can tell you that there's nothing like a fresh set of cutting edges on a thickness planer to make your project come out amazing especially when my records show that it's been almost 11 months since i last switched to new cutting edges in this planer with that bit of housekeeping out of the way i fire up the dust processor and the thickness planer and make successive passes on each of the pieces until the whole top surface is planed down flat smooth and clean after that i'll lower the cutter head another quarter of a revolution or 1 64 of an inch and clean up the flattened face of all the pieces to complete the milling process for these four leg pieces well that straightening flattening detwisting process is complete i want to tell you that it went 100 perfect but i'd be lying to you it went really good i'm pleased with the pieces uh they're a 64th of an inch less than three quarters of an inch i took one final pass to clean up some of that snipe that came from the planer sled like i said if i would have put spacer blocks in between there i probably would have saved that last 64th of an inch the piece that i'll call the skinny mini this is the one that was twisted the most and it seems like there's always a piece like this in every batch you can see the one corner here still has the residual twist in it the rest of the piece is cleaned up the opposite corner here you can see a little bit of that but the way this leg gets cut out that is going to be okay it was just the slightest bit worse than that i would um start over and make a new piece but i want to leave the reality of that milling in this video because things don't always come out perfect if this was a piece of furniture and not a carpenter's footstool i would probably not be able to get away with that but i want to see what happens i may still end up remaking this piece but i'm leaving all this in the video so that you can see the reality of milling wood and especially milling twisted wood in a perfect world i would have just ditched that whole beautiful piece of mahogany and started with a piece that was straighter and flatter but these are just some of the things that uh that you encounter from time to time and that shows you how that you can handle some of those undesirable conditions that you run into as it is i'm going to get these snipe strips taken off of here and then work on laying out cutting and gluing up the ash pieces for the tops milling this ash for the footstool tops is a lot less work than the mahogany because the rough stock is plenty wide has very little twist and is plenty thick to flatten and thickness without going to extra measures here's a little pro tip for you when milling rough lumber most pencil marks on rough lumber get planed or sawn away somewhere during the process so i preserved those pencil marks with short saw cuts in the rough piece to maintain the length marks i made during layout and the benefit of this little pro tip is that i can leave the rough pieces longer which speeds up the milling process overall because of that i'm able to easily cut pieces to rough length straighten and rip them to rough width [Music] flatten and thickness them to the appropriate thickness [Music] joint the edges straight and true and then glue them up and plane them to their final thickness without the undo fuss necessary with the mahogany the ash plank is wide enough so that during the process i can quickly rip four pieces for rails on the stools while the shop is still set up for milling i run the rails over the joiner one last time to make sure they're arrows straight then rip them to width and here's a lazy man's tip i use to minimize sanding later i rip these rails to one and 11 16 inches wide that's 1 16 of an inch over their final width of 1 5 8 inches then i remove the thickness planer to remove an extra 1 32 of an inch from each edge this leaves the surface so smooth it virtually eliminates the need for standing later you can see by the length of the pieces i'm working with here that i've decided to make stools of two different lengths one will be 30 inches long and the other will be 24 inches long like the one i'm replacing i'll take a few minutes while tops and legs are in clamps to make the template i'll use for routing a slot for a handhold in the top of each one of these tools i'll use this piece a quarter inch thick white white mdf melamine scrap for the template i start by drawing a line about six and a half inches from one edge and then marking the center of the piece on that line then i use a sharp center punch to put a small indent at the intersection of those two lines then i use that little indentation to line up the center of a one inch forstner bit and drill a clean hole through the quarter inch mdf the next step is to align a tooth on the table saw blade so that it's tangent with one side of the hole and then set the rib fence so when i make this cut the saw's kerf is tangent to that same side of the one inch hole i repeat the process resetting the fence for the opposite side of the hole and make another cut and that gives me these two scraps with a half circle cut into one end of each one i want the hand hole to be a total of six inches wide so i put a mark three inches on either side of the center line i drew earlier and use a square to extend those lines for alignment purposes i draw lines tangent to the half circle on each end of the scraps to assemble this template i reach for my trusty starbon glue caddy spritz some activator on the long sides of the openings and rub a small bead of medium ca glue on the scrap insert pieces then i simply align the pencil marks and stick the scrap to the piece the last gluing step is a repeat of the first two where i spray accelerator on the long piece add medium ca glue to the two scraps and stick the whole thing together after a long 10 seconds because it's a little cool in the shop and that slow ca glue curing time my handhold template is complete and it was just as easy as that now that general milling is complete it's time to welcome back viewers that skip that part of the video and get into final fabrication and joinery of the stool this phase starts by cutting the top slab to its final size which in this case is 10 inches wide by 24 inches long i decided along the way to make a fourth smaller stool because i'd rather go through the gears and cut all the parts while i'm set up than to just throw the offcuts in the scrap bin for pieces like these tops that are too wide to run through the thickness planer on edge i modify my lazy man's tip from earlier when cutting these tops to their final size of 10 inches to get smooth finished edges on wide pieces i first set the jointer to one thirty second of an inch and shave one thirty second of an inch off the edge of the piece as many times as i need to to make sure the first edge is straight then i set the rib fence on the table saw one thirty second of an inch proud of my final dimension of ten inches and trim the top piece to that setting make sure to use an extra slow feed rate for each final pass over the joiner and using those steps in that sequence gives me wonderfully smooth edges on the piece at its final width of 10 inches by repeating those steps using the same setting on the joiner and the table saw for the other three top slabs i'm assured that all four slabs will be identical and finished with cutting the stools top the length at this stage is pretty routine this is the show face of the piece that i glued up and this is the better end so draw a square mark on that end to trim it up nice and clean and then i mark the length at 24 and 8 inches so the stool top ends up at exactly 24 inches after i bevel the ends later because my table saw is a right tilt model i'll cut this top piece with its top face down to facilitate those cuts i use a stairette protractor square to transfer the length marks across the edges of the piece so that i can line up the blade while making these cuts for a little extra clarity while making the cut i'll flip the piece over and connect the beveled lines on the bottom side so that i can watch the progress of the cut as i make it the setup i use for making cuts like this clean smooth accurate and safely involves using a freud 60 tooth thin kerf cross cut blade an osborne eb3 miter guide and last but not least a pair of atlas showa blue smurf gloves give me the grip i need for handling the piece while making the cut in this replay of that kickback event you can see how the wide gap in my table saw throw insert plate caused the piece to bind in the slot against the blade until the teeth caught the piece and flung it like an arrow back at me as i stood down range of the flying piece you can see that the larger piece didn't create the same danger as the narrow one that got stuck in the slot and so i only have one little battle scar to show for the mishap in hindsight a zero clearance insert like this that was custom fit to the blade at 10 degrees would have prevented that from happening or i could have put a piece of masking tape over the slot to keep the piece from falling down in there or as another option if i'd anticipated the problem ahead of time i could have split the size of the off cut so that this smaller piece didn't fall down into that slot and as you watch that little piece kick back at me in slow motion i'm reminded of the adage i used to describe events like this we started life with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience as life goes on we empty the bag of luck as we fill our bag of experience in an incident like this where i got just a little nick took a good dose of luck out of one bag and added a small portion of experience to the other bag following my own advice while cutting the douglas fur top for another stool i lower the blade add a couple pieces of heavy blue masking tape and then raise the blade through the tape before making the cuts on that top and by taking that simple extra step i'm able to cut even thinner pieces off the ends of the douglas fir top without incident with the stools top cut to its final size i mark it for center in both width and length and i use those center marks to align the template we made earlier for positioning the handhold slot i line up center lines on the template with center lines on the top and clamp the template in place for setting an edge guide and this is why i positioned the slot in the template six inches in from its edge and that extra width gives me enough room to attach a small indexing fence to the underside of the template so that i can center the handhold slot in all of the stools that i'm building and now with this template all set up i'll realign the end to end center mark and draw out the shape of the hand hole on the stool's top using the hand hold layout as a guide i'll drill a couple of 7 8 inch holes near each end of the slot i'm using a drill press because i can but you can do this with a hand drill as long as you use a piece of sacrificial material under the piece so that it doesn't split out on the other side the goal with this step is to quickly and cleanly remove material near the ends of the slot but it's important not to touch or go outside the line because the pencil line is the size of the finished slot and i'll remove that little extra margin with a flush trim router bit in a minute i use a jigsaw to remove the rest of the bulk on the material from the handhold slot being careful to stay well within the margin lines so i don't spoil the piece the jigsaw makes quick work of this but it can also be done with a coping saw a scroll saw or by drilling successive holes through the middle of the slot if you choose to use a jigsaw make sure you apply steady forward pressure to the saw paying special attention not to apply sideways pressure that can bend the blade and spoil the cuff the end result is a perfect bit of margin around the opening that gets cleaned up with a router bit in the next step this is when the time spent making a template earlier really pays off to clean up the slot in the stool top i clamped the top to the work surface and then clamped the template to the top with the template lined up the center marks made earlier i'll use this top bearing flush trim bit in a d-handled bosch router to quickly route the slot in the top to match the slot in the template with the template clamped firmly in place using small screw clamps you can see the small margin of extra material that will get flush trimmed away in this step notice that i'm mindful to drop the router into the slot before i pull the trigger and wait until the bit comes to a complete stop before lifting the router out after the flush trimming process and then use a slow steady feed rate throughout this slot smooth and clean in my humble opinion using this method with a template and a flush trim router bit is much better than rough cutting the slot with a jigsaw and then finishing up with an oscillating spindle sander because once i'm done routing i'm done and no sanding is required to even out the shape of the hole in the top of the stool because the flush trimming process leaves such a crisp sharp edge i'll switch to an eighth inch round over bit and a small bosch coat router to round over the top and bottom corners of the hand hold to make it comfortable and user friendly in use with the roundover routing complete the perfectly formed handhold slot needs barely a lick with 150 grit sandpaper before applying a varnish finish another huge benefit of using the flush trim router template process is that i'm able to finish shaping the slots in all four stool tops in very little time because i invested time making the template in the first place if instead i resorted to a jigsaw and a spindle sander for making these slots i'd be a pretty grumpy camper right about now but as it is i finish up the slots in very little time at all with the handhold slots complete in the top the next step is to chop three mortises in each end of each of the tops that'll accept three wedge tenons on the top of each one of the legs it shouldn't be a surprise at this point that i'll be making yet another template to help lay out and chop these mortises because you've already seen how well a template can work to streamline the process of locating and making holes through these tops i'll use the same process for making a template for these mortises that i used for the handhold template earlier for this template i start with a piece of quarter inch mdf that's ten inches wide to size and locate the mortises the way they need to be on the stool i cut one strip at one inch one strip at two and five-eighths inches a strip at a half inch and the remaining strip is four inches wide i also cut some little blocks exactly one inch long some scraps i cut off the stool tops earlier to finish cutting parts for this template i cut two chunks exactly two and a quarter inches long out of the piece of melamine that i earlier ripped one half inch wide with all the parts for this template gang cut for accuracy i start the layout by marking the center of the mdf pieces because the center mortise is exactly one inch wide i'll put layout marks a half inch on either side of that center line to line up that mortise and i use those lines to line up one of the little hardwood blocks in the center of the template then i put one of the two and a quarter inch pieces of mdf on either side of that center mortise use two more of the little one-inch blocks to lay out the two side mortises and use the scraps of the half-inch strip to fill out the sides of the template now i roughly mark out the location of the two side mortises on the wide template piece to follow when i apply the ca glue in a little bit with that layout done i'll apply accelerator to the little blocks of mdf on the template and then carefully add medium ca glue to the appropriate places on the wide template piece so now i can remove the little spacer blocks and repeat the gluing process for the other side of the template and that process gives me a template with three perfectly sized perfectly located mortises with a minimum of measuring and stress the last step to make this template usable is to glue the one-inch strip of mdf to the underside of the two and five-eighths inch strip of mdf that's already built into the template that final step will space the mortises exactly one and five-eighths inches off the end of the stool tops and you can see that like the handheld template earlier this template allows me to quickly accurately precisely and repetitively lay out these small mortises on both ends of all these tops all i need to do is bump the one inch stop strip on the bottom side of the template up against the end of the top and flush the template up with the stool sides and use a sharp sharp right or pencil to trace around the inside of the mortise holes as i transition from making this slick mortising template to using it i want to give a shout out to patrons of next level carpentry on patreon who go above and beyond for the channel support from patrons helps make production of long format in-depth videos like this worthwhile by supplementing ad revenue from youtube because youtube's algorithm essentially penalizes content producers like next level carpentry who produce videos that are over 15 minutes in length and don't go viral if you like and learn from videos like this that are ninety percent content versus ninety percent hype i welcome you to join the growing list of loyal viewers who've already contributed to the making this video with their generous patronage by following the link in the video description to patreon if you're new here and not motivated to become a patron yet i'll ask you to consider subscribing to next level carpentry on youtube if you haven't already it's free you know and as a subscriber you'll be on the long short list of viewers who are notified each time a new video is uploaded to the channel while i'm engaged in this bit of shameless self-promotion do me a favor and exert appropriate force on the thumbs up icon for this video if you think it merits such action and i'll return the favor by ending this infomercial and getting back to work once the mortises are laid out there's plenty of methods for chopping them the best being a hollow chisel mortiser since most people including me don't have a hollow chisel mortiser at their disposal i'll use a three-step process starting with a 7 16 forstner bit and a drill press where i carefully line up the bit within the mortise lines and drill three holes through the top for each mortise i drill the two side holes first and then clean out the web in the middle with that third hole the only requirement for drilling these holes is that they stay within the mortise marks that i drew with a sharp pencil using the template as an aside using a forstner bit allows me to drill that third center hole where it's not possible with a brad point bit or a regular twist drill bit once the bulk of the material is drilled out of each of the mortises i advance to the second step of my three-step mortising process to start this process i'll clamp the template to the top surface of the footstool top and then flip the top over and clamp it in the vise i use these small but robust erwin screw clamps to assure that the template stays in the exact position i want it during the routing process to come once the template is lined up and clamped in place i flip the top upside down so that the template is on the underside of the work piece to route the mortises using the template i've chucked a quarter inch shank quarter inch diameter bottom bearing one inch cut length flush trim router bit into my bosch colt router here again i dropped the bit into the drilled hole before i turn it on and then i carefully route around the perimeter of each of the mortises to end up with half inch by one inch round corner rectangles for each of the mortises because these mortises are a full three-quarter inch deep and the top is made of ash i use a slow cautious feed rate with this quarter inch shank router bit a mortise this deep in wood this hard is kind of pushing the limits for that small bit and the small router but with care of patience and a little bit of time the morris has come out just the way i want them because the wood is so dense and i'm making this deep cut i take multiple passes on each side of the mortise to make sure the flush trimming is complete before shutting off the router and moving to the next mortise you can hear by the strain of the router and the chatter of the bit then i'm pushing the limits of this little setup and when pushing the limits like this it's entirely possible that the router bit can snap so proceed with caution at times like this and if you hold your tongue just right it'll work out fine here again it's important to let the router come to a full stop before lifting it out of the hole so that the mortise doesn't get nicked by a spinning bit as you lift the router and this is the stage of this operation where making the template pays off again because all i need to do to route these mortises is clamp the template once on each end of the stool to make them clean accurate and consistent without really breaking a sweat keep in mind that i've got four separate stools which means there's 24 individual mortises that i'm making using this template and this setup and with that many mortises this really pays off in speed and accuracy on a tedium scale of 1 to 10 where a t1 is applying gel poly varnish to a finished product and the t10 is sanding i'd place squaring out the corners of these mortises add about a t8 so i'll clamp down the work piece and use a very sharp chisel for the job i start by cutting cross grain at the corners with a light tap of the chisel and then carefully square up the ends holding the chisel vertically after squaring out the narrow end of the mortise in that fashion i drive the sharp corner of the chisel down along the corner to finish out cleaning the little fillet of wood in there because the width of the slot and the width of the chisel are identical i finish up by driving the chisel straight down along the end of the mortise and i drive the chisel down until it hits the sacrificial board i have on the top of the workbench for a more smooth and efficient workflow i chisel one end of the mortise from one direction and then reposition the camera to square up the other sides of these three mortises as i train muscle memory and repeat cuts with the chisel at the same angle i'm able to speed up workflow for this tedious process a fair amount with each individual mortise corner that i clean up before moving on to the three mortises on the other end of the stool top i'll flip the piece over and make sure that the bottom side is clean and square like the top i try to avoid chips like that but the way the leg fits on the bottom here that won't show in the finished project as soon as i'm satisfied with the first set of mortises i flip the piece end friend and then rinse lather and repeat to finish up the mortises for the stools top after final clean up of the mortises on the underside of the stool top i flip it over and use this piece of hardwood that's exactly one half inch by one inch as a test tenon to check my work on these three mortises and a smooth but snug fit tells me these mortises are done in the next level carpentry shop cheating is allowed on anything on the tdm scale that's above a t5 and because squaring these mortises are about a t8 i'll show you a little cheat that i allow myself for cleaning up the 18 remaining mortises on the other stool tops just because i don't have a hollow chisel mortiser doesn't mean i don't have a hollow chisel mortising bit and it just so happens that i have one for making half inch mortises so the cheat that i've allowed myself here is to reclamp the mortising template on the stool top and use this incredibly sharp hollow chisel mortising bit to clean up the corners two at a time i tap it with care using a plastic face mallet and you can see how quickly and easily this little cheat works the crisp openings and sharp clean edges inside the mortising template are a perfect guide for this hollow chisel mortise bit and i clean up six corners in jig time using this cheat i drive the chisel down until it hits the sacrificial surface underneath rather than driving it down completely to finish the mortise i just unclamped the template and finished the cleaning process from the bottom side of the top an initial check with the test tenon tells me these mortises are still just a little bit snug so i'll do a bit of cleanup to loosen them up ever so slightly and after a little finicky fuss the mortises are cleaned up and complete and how about this as an example of accuracy efficiency and consistency for wedge tendons to work on this stool these mortises need to be slightly wider at the top than at the bottom so i'll use a chisel to put a two degree bevel on the long sides of all these mortises because the angle is so slight and i want consistent results i made this two degree bevel guide block and clamp it to the top of the bench top about a thirty second of an inch away from the edge of the existing mortises after careful adjustment of the block i just rest the back face of the chisel up against the bevel and tap it with a mallet to create that slight two degree bevel on the inside of the mortise after chiseling the first three sides i flip the setup around and bevel the other side of the mortises because this is very hard end grain and my chisel is not as sharp as it could be the bevel inside the mortise is a little bit rough but ultimately that'll only serve to hold the tenons more securely once they're glued and wedged in place you can see by the fit of the test tenon that the mortise is still the half inch by one inch size on the bottom but it's expanded at the top by a total of four degrees while i slave away beveling 42 more morticed on 21 mortises you guys get to move on to the next section where i'll be cutting the legs to size and cutting the tenons on their tops i suppose it goes without saying that i've had my fill of chopping mortises for the time being so i'm excited to move on to fabricating the legs cutting them to size putting the tenons on top etc as you can see here i've got all the legs cut to the exact width they're all the exact same thickness very little twist left in those and the next step is to do the layout for the tenons and cut these pieces to length so what i've done is made a scrap material here that is the same thickness uh as the legs and i already put a 10 degree bevel on the one end and that's the angle of the legs on the stools so i'll take that over to the bench and go through the straightforward but somewhat intricate process of laying out the tenons and the length of these legs if you recall the stool tops are three quarters of an inch thick and i want to rough cut the tenons with an extra 8 inch length so i'll mark the bottom of the top at 7 8 of an inch and put another mark at 1 8 of an inch to represent the thickness of the top and that extra tenon length i'm using a sterite protractor square for this layout and i've got it set at 10 degrees to make these marks next i'll measure the overall length of these legs and for demonstration purposes i'm going to tape a scrap that's cut at 10 degrees to the side of the leg that will aid in doing a perpendicular measurement to this angled leg notice i've taped the block so that its top edge lines up perfectly with the top edge of the stool so when i place my framing square on the top edge of the block i can measure down 14 and a half inches along the wide blade of the square to mark the total length of the leg and that bit of analog geometry shows me that i need a leg length of exactly 15 inches from the long point on one end of the leg to the long point of the 10 degree bevel cut on the other end now that the leg's overall length is established i'll add detailed layout that shows the exact position and configuration of the tenons on the tops of the legs since the mortises are perpendicular in the tops and the legs are angled i need to lay out these tenons perpendicular in relation to the top so i use a small machinist square to lay out the first face of the tenon from a point where the tenon will meet the angled face of the leg since the rid of the tenons is exactly a half inch i'll mark for that next using a small machine square to extend the mark with those layout marks done you can see that the tenon is exactly a half inch wide and it has a shoulder on each face of the leg this material here will get sanded off after the tendon is glued up and wedged in place now i sketch the line for the base of the tenon back in place and put a center mark on the tenon on the edge of this scrap ultimately i'll end up cutting a slot 1 8 inch wide for the tenon wedge so i'll lay that out now the last layout detail for these tenons is a relief hole at the base of the slot that will allow the tenon to expand 4 degrees when it's wedged in place without a focused stress point to split the leg considering the size of the tenon and the wedge i'll make that relief hole 3 16 of an inch in diameter and giving the slot a round bottom instead of one with sharp square edges works well to reduce splitting notice that i hold that circle ever so slightly above the shoulder of the tenon here on the side of the leg now with that oil complete i can proceed with confidence in cutting these legs to size and then shaping the tenons on the top ends reflecting on my minor kickback incident from earlier i decided to make a dedicated insert for making these 10 degree bevel cuts so i remove the throat plate tilt the blade to 10 degrees and then lower it beneath the table surface then i slip out my standard zero clearance insert piece slide in a fresh one drop the throat plate into position position the rib fence over the throat plate turn on the saw and then raise the blade up through that new insert at 10 degrees having the rib fence down snug on the throat plate as i raise the blade up through the insert prevents any kind of a fracas from resistance as the blade rises up through the insert so that i can make these cuts cleanly confidently and unlike last time safely considering the number of bevel cuts i need to make on all these legs i added an extension to my table saw table here to catch the parts after they go through i've already gone through this stack and picked out the show face for each piece which is facing up and a perfectly square clean edge is on the right and because i have plenty of extra length on all these pieces i've set the fence to 15 and 3 8 inches to make the first bevel cut on the top end of each of these legs this setup is overkill if you're making just two legs for one stool but it was worth the effort for me because i've got a whole batch of legs to cut this is also an ideal application for using a crosscut sled instead of this setup as well i'll also mention that if you've got a left tilt table saw instead of a right tilt model like mine all the cuts for these legs will be reversed for your setup but the goal for this step is the same and that is to end up with a 10 degree bevel on the top end of each of the legs i neglected to mention that a good part of the reason that these wide beveled cross cuts come out smooth crisp and clean is that i'm using a sharp freud 60 tooth thin curve crosscut blade backed up with a forest blade stabilizer and i find that that combination consistently produces results like this by way of follow-up i want to point out here that if you look closely at the off cuts that i just made from the top ends of these legs you'll see screw holes from the planer sled setup i used at the beginning of the video trimmed off neatly and cleanly from these pieces so that they don't end up as part of the finished stools to cut these legs to their final length i'll flip the stack of pieces over end for end so that the long point of the 10 degree bevel i just cut rides along the rip fence because the measurement of the legs is exactly 15 inches from the long point on one end to the long point on the other end i'm able to set the fence at exactly 15 inches and make the cuts and notice how nicely that 10 degree zero clearance insert keeps these thin offcuts from binding next to the blade and becoming projectiles now that the bevel cutting is finished these legs are cut to their exact final length and this is what the batch of legs should look like at this stage of the game because the leg pattern piece that i laid out in the vise is the exact same length and thickness as each one of these legs i'll use it to set up each of the cuts for making these tenons to take advantage of the blade angle and fence position that i've already got set up the first cut i'll make for the tenon is the slight shoulder on the back side of the leg this cut amounts to just scoring the face on the backside of the leg for that shoulder but doing it as a separate operation makes the cut clean and precise and i like using a pattern piece for setup like this because if there's any slight adjustments that need to be made before cutting the finished pieces i don't spoil one of the legs in the process i make sure that the whole stack of parts that i need to cut with this operation are lined up and oriented the same way so i just remove them from the stack make the bevel cut and then pile them up in a new stack awaiting the next cut to take further advantage of the current fence setup i'll make the second cut for these tenons which is the cheek cut on the outside of the leg where i readjust the blade height and reset the fence to make this cut on the pattern and i like the look of this test cut on the first setting so i can proceed by cutting through the stack of legs with this setup and this is what the legs look like after those first two cuts for making tenons are made the next tenon cut is for the shoulder on the outside face of the leg so with the blade set at a 10 degree angle i adjust the fence and the blade height to make this little cut and that setup gives me a nice crisp clean shoulder and base of the tenon so i'll proceed to make that cut on the stack of legs take note that the most important thing about this cut is that the shoulders line up perfectly across the edge of the leg at a 10 degree angle as with other setups in this process it takes just a couple minutes to make all these shoulder cuts on the stack of legs the next cut for these tenons is to cut the cheek off the face on the inside of the leg the cut is made at 10 degrees from the interface of the leg so i've set up a tall auxiliary sacrificial fence on the table saw to make the cut accurately i use tenon layout marks on my sample piece to line up the fence for the width of the cut and set the blade for the height of the cut i previously cut a long slender strip of scrap with a 10 degree bevel on it and now use that long bevel strip to support the work piece as i cut the cheek of this tenon so that the work piece doesn't drop after the small wedge is cut away now i tape that long beveled strip to the table saw top in order to support the work piece while i make the second tenon cheek cut it's a small but important detail because it keeps the work piece from dropping just a fraction once the tenon cheek is cut away and the work piece is no longer supported by the long point cut on the end of the legs oh yeah and one more thing i give that little strip of wood a heavy coat of paste wax so the work pieces slide easily across the surface and with everything set up just so i make the cut for the tenon cheek on the inside of the leg you can see after the first pass that the tenon is just a little bit fat so i make adjustments and shave it again so that it comes out exactly a half inch thick for a snug fit in the mortises and i'm gonna go with that with everything set up and dialed in i can go ahead and cut the cheeks off the tenons on the legs and i'll mention ahead of time that i'm aware the small offcut from this operation is getting pinched between the blade and the sacrificial fence and if i can't grab it on the outfeed side of the saw and it kicks back i'll just let it fly because it's so small and so light it won't hurt a thing making that cheek cut wraps up that part of the tenon cutting process each one of these has a continual tenon across the top of the leg oriented at 10 degrees to the leg which will be perpendicular to the top and the thickness that just a skosh over a half inch makes these fit snugly into the mortises on the underside of the leg like that actually so i'll go about laying out to cut most of this tight away to leave three separate tenons that will fit into the mortises on the tops as i make this segway i'll point out that i had a bit of difficulty making some of the cheek cuts on some of these legs it involved having the parts oriented wrong when i made a cut so there was a little back pedaling involved to get the pieces modified so that i could continue through with making these tenon cuts and making the stools it was an interesting but long and rather convoluted process to get that done so i didn't put it in this video but active patrons get to see that whole experience of salvaging these legs in a patron only video that's available to active patrons through patreon because i still have the template i used for chopping these mortises in the tops i can use the same template to lay out for the mortises on the legs by simply lining up a center mark in the template with a center mark on the leg and squaring those marks up with a drafting square for visibility since all the legs are the same width and the tendons are symmetrical i've reduced the number of setups needed to make cuts to define these tenons to make six cuts that define three tenons on each one of the legs i carefully stack all the pieces so they line up and clamp them firmly together so i can make cuts on the whole stack at once i make sure the stack is square and that the legs are tilting at 10 degrees and then set the blade height to just a skoshe under the total length of the tenon then i line up the blade on the correct side of one of my tenon layout marks set the fence to that alignment and make a cut for that side of the tenon as i said a minute ago because all these tenons are symmetrical in relation to the center of the leg i merely flip the stack around and make the cut to define the far edge of the tenon on the other side of the leg with the same fence setup i give myself a slight margin of error here making the tenons a little wider than the layout marks so i have a little extra material to shave if necessary for a snug fit in the mortises i make the remainder of these tenon defining cuts in the same manner by setting the stack adjusting the fence making the cut flip the stack around and making the mirror cut on the other side of the stack you can't see it but i'm using a miter guide behind the stack to push it through and i'm paying attention to the blade's exit point on the back side of the stack to verify this setup with high hopes of avoiding errors i shut the saw off flipped the stack around and check the alignment mark before committing to the cut and this step in the process kind of highlights the advantage of doing a batch of stools in the process because i'm able to define 24 tenons with 48 cuts in the same time it would take to do just two legs i intended to cut the tenon wedge slot before making those tenon defining cuts but i got ahead of myself so i'm switching blades to an eighth inch kerf flat bottom grind ripping blade and reinstalling the axillary fence to get this done to set up for cutting wedge slots through all the tenons i set the blade at a 10 degree angle adjust the depth to the depth of the slot cut i set the depth of the slot so it comes tangent with a little stress relief hole that i'll drill through the tenons later and set the fence to align the slot smack dab in the middle of the tenon with everything dialed in and locked in i'll test run the cut on my sample pattern piece and i like the looks of that although i think i'll shift the slot ever so slightly over to make these two halves of the tenon equal thickness because they're just a skoshe off being extra careful to orient the correct face of the lake against the auxiliary fence i make a slight nip of a cut after making that lateral adjustment and satisfied with that proceed to cut the tenon wide slot in the legs if you're getting tired of mortises and tendons by now all i can say is suck it up buttercup because we got a ways to go because it's time to cut mortises in these legs to accept the rails underneath the stool but i think the exercise highlights the fact of what a great invention screws and glue are because this stool could be easily made with biscuits glue and a couple of screws but let's press on with the old school method where i do the layout for the mortises and tenons for the stools rails over at the bench i'll start as i did before by laying out the tenons this time on the end of one of the rails for the stool you can see that i've already cut a 10 degree angle on the end of the rail and for the same reason as before i'll put a mark at 1 8 inch and a mark at 7 8 of an inch and use the protractor square to draw lines through those marks then i use a machinist square to start the tenon on the top edge of the rail because these tenons get expanded in a different direction i'll make the 10 and 15 16 of an inch wide so that it expands out to one inch when it's complete and mark for that now while i'm at it i mark the center of the tenon and the eighth inch slot for the wedge and finish up with a teeny circle that serves as the stress relief hole later as you'll see later i've offset the tenon in this rail because there'll be a slot on the inside of the rails that holds the tray in the bottom of the stool and i don't want to cut into the tenon with the dado for that tray i want the top of the stools rails to be four and a half inches off the ground when the stool is complete there's nothing magic about that height but i found it useful and convenient over the years so i'm going to go with that using the same method i used for the total height of the stool on the leg i used that 10 degree block of scrap and a framing square to put a mark on the edge of a stool leg at four and a half inches to represent the top of the rail i'll do all the layout for the stool leg on this douglas fir piece for clarity where i start out by using a sterit double square to transfer the mark for the top of the rail tenon to both sides of the leg as you just saw the height of the mortise is 15 16 of an inch so i change the setting on the square and draw marks for the bottom of the mortise as well next i'll use a steel rule to mark the exact center of the leg and use a sweet little anodized aluminum square from my buddy greg porter at guru machine works to square up that center mark i want the stool rails to measure eight inches outside to outside when everything's done so i line up four inches with the center mark on the leg and put a mark at the end of the rule as you'll see there's going to be a 16th inch shoulder on both faces of the rails so i'll put a mark 1 16 of an inch in from the end of the rule as well so that the mortises on the legs and the mortises on the top end up the same size i'm making them 9 16 of an inch wide so i'll put another mark at 5 8 of an inch to represent the other side of the mortise then i flip the rule and repeat the process on the other side of the face of this length now i use the double square to draw lines from those marks to define the mortise opening fyi i use marks from both the rule and the double square as kind of a double check to make sure that all my layout marks are centered up on the leg because a mistake with one will be caught with the other while the light and camera are set up i may as well lay out the other features of these legs for the stool while i'm at it so the first thing i'll do is lay out the notch that separates the leg into two feet i start out by putting a mark two and a half inches up from the bottom of the leg on the center mark i use that mark as an intersection point for two sixty degree lines that define the v cut for this opening and then i use the same mark to draw a circle with a nine sixteenths inch radius for the one and an eighth inch hole that forms a stress release on the center of the legs to finish layout on these legs i draw angle cuts for the taper on the top of the legs and little chip relief bevels on the bottom corners of the feet the chip relief notches are going to be difficult to see on the carry wood accents on the sides of these legs but basically they're 3 8 of an inch in from the bottom edge and run at a 60 degree angle from the bottom the legs taper from 11 and a half inches wide at the bottom to eight and a half inches wide at the top so i add marks for those dimensions and connect the dots these pencil marks serve more as reference marks than cut lines because i'll make a setup for making these cuts later to lay out and chop mortises on this leg and all the rest i made a template in the same manner and for the same purpose as before the template's the exact width of the legs has a stop on the bottom for indexing the mortises from the bottom edge of the legs and i use the clean crisp rectangular openings to quickly mark for mortises on the legs all i need to do is reference the template off the sharp bottom edge of the leg and use a sharp pencil to trace around the inside of the mortise openings for a perfect accurate and consistent layout while i was at it i laid out the stress relief hole for the bottom of the leg and drilled a 1 16 inch pilot hole through its center that i'll use as a guide point for drilling that hole with a forstner bit later as always an accurate template makes easy consistent and precise layout a breeze with all the mortises laid out on the legs i use the same three-step process for chopping them only this time i start with a half inch bit because the mortises are 9 16 of an inch wide and because of the bigger bit size i only need to drill two holes to clear out the bulk of the wood before routing and my bosch router is thankful that doug fur and mahogany are softer than ash so routing mortises in these legs goes quicker than routing the ones in the tops since i don't have a 9 16 inch chisel or hollow mortising bit i have to drive the mortise chisel twice on each end of the mortise to square em up but that's no big deal after squaring up the corners as the third step of the mortising process i check my work with a test tenon that's 9 16 of an inch by 15 16 of an inch and finish up by adding that small two degree bevel to the top and bottom of these mortises notice this time that i'm beveling the top and bottom of these mortises on the outside face of the leg the reason i'm doing it that way is because i want the pressure of the expanded mortise to go with the grain like i did on the tops of the stools rather than across the grain which would stress the leg and potentially split it along the grain because i don't have a 9 16 wide chisel i add that bevel in two passes with a half inch chisel also take notice that i'm beveling these mortises on the outside face of the leg because that's the side where the tenon wedge is driven in and expands the tenon to lock into the mortise as i finish up beveling the last of these mortises i want to compliment everybody that's still with me in this video we must be what 45 minutes into the video by now and there's still a ways to go and it's at times like this that a little bit of encouragement is a good thing because uh you get that deep into a project that many steps that much stuff to do and it's easy to rush ahead uh to do things that are a little less tedious and a little more dramatic than uh chopping mortises and making little notches but it's an important part of success in any woodworking project to be able to follow the sequence in a sensible manner and take each step as it comes and speaking of that you'll notice that i've left these legs rectangular up until this stage because it helps with all the layout and making the various cuts locating mortises notches etc but thankfully now i can do a couple of a little more dramatic things that are a little more fun and have a little more to show for the effort and to that end i've made a setup here for cutting the v-notch in the bottom of the leg that separates the leg into two feet i've got the blade set at a 30 degree angle which matches this obviously the fence is set so that it makes the v cut on this side then i can flip it around and make the opposite v i've got a tall auxiliary fence here on the miter guide for supporting the piece so it pushes it evenly past the spinning saw blade and the last detail you'll see is that the blade height is set to cut into this circle that will get drilled out but the blade isn't set so high that it'll cut this triangle free [Music] and that little detail prevents this piece here from getting caught up in the blade and becoming a projectile but the setup makes quick work of creating that v-notch here again keep in mind if you've got a left tilt table saw your setup will look different than this but you need to accomplish the same cut as a safety note please use extreme caution anytime your blade is raised this high out of the table because that's an amputation waiting to happen if you're not careful and it's especially important when making a cut through an auxiliary fence like this because the spinning blade comes right through the back of the auxiliary fence and can be an extremely dangerous thing if you're not paying attention notice that i'm wearing my sticky blue smurf gloves to maintain a sure grip on the piece and i take extra caution in handling the piece because dropping a work piece on a blade sticking this far out of the table that's spinning creates a hazard that's potentially dangerous and sure to be painful if there's a mishap because i used the scratch all in a template to mark the center for this relief hole earlier i used that center point as a guide for a 1-1 8 inch diameter forstner bit to drill the hole cleanly through the leg and to release the little pyramid from the notch cut in the bottom of these legs and even though it doesn't really matter something tells me that those 60 degree cuts were pretty spot on with all the v-notches cut and those relief holes drilled the next step in making these legs is to cut a taper on each side so that the legs are 11 and a half inches wide at the bottom and eight and a half inches wide at the top to make these cuts i'll make a simple fixture for the table saw to do it and although i say it's simple i could spend a whole video just talking about making this fixture but the video's plenty long as it is so i'm just going to kind of breeze over this i'll start out with a piece of square material and on the back i've got a rail that fits in the miter guide slot and the edge has been cut off by the blade in the saw so that that rib acts as a guide to carry the sled past the blade and the purpose of the fixture is to carry the work piece past the blade in a manner that cuts it off on that tapered line which is a pretty straightforward taper cutting setup to orient the work piece and the sled accurately i need to line up this edge of the sled with this pencil mark that represents the cut for the taper on the leg and it connects a point that's three inches off the bottom to a point that's four and a quarter inches away from the center point on the face of the leg a super quick way to do that is to employ a little bit of starbond ca glue and i'll just spray accelerator to the back of a piece of mdf like that add a couple of dabs of medium ca glue to the scrap and then place the mdf strip so it lines up on the pencil mark it represents the cut and with that temporary strip of mdf glued on i just flip the work piece over and index the strip against the side of the jig for perfect angle placement to register and support each leg for making the same cut i'll add two more stop blocks first placing a thick one at the bottom of the leg and it's important for the piece at the base of the leg to be thicker than the leg so it adequately supports the piece when it's flipped over because it needs to catch the long point of the bottom of the leg in both orientations with the work piece tight to the edge of the fixture and the bottom butted snugly into the bottom stop block i place another orienting block on the opposite side of the stool's leg i back up the ca glue on both of the stops with a couple of screws so that they won't pop loose as i'm making the cuts this fixture gets two more features to make it both safer to use and accurate for consistent results the first and more important feature is a distaco clamp that adds pressure to the work piece and keeps my fingers away from the spinning blade while making the cut the second feature is adding a disposable handle to the fixture this is more of a creature comfort but it does make it easier and safer to use and even though i'm breezing through the fixture it takes long enough to explain it as it is but now that it's complete i can break off this temporary guide block and when i drop the work piece into place against the two stops and lock it in you can see that that cut lines up perfectly on the underside of the jig so that once the work piece is in position against the two stops and locked down with a distecho clamp making repetitive accurate angle cuts is a breeze because of the thick stop block for the bottom of the leg it stays oriented to the long point of that 10 degree cut even when i flip the piece over so when the piece is locked down in this opposite orientation the taper cut comes out the same [Music] this is another situation where making a fixture really pays off for making a batch of parts like this but even if i was just making one stool and only had four cuts to make on two legs i still would have set up the same fixture because once fixture making is part of your repertoire it goes fast and easy much faster than when trying to produce a video of the process two down six to go and for me using a simple but elegant fixture like this to produce consistent accurate results is one of the true joys of woodworking and i'd rate it at about a t1 on that tedium scale i mentioned earlier and you know you're doing something right when even the scraps come out identical as long as i'm in leg cutting mode i'll add the two little chip relief bevels on the bottom outside corner of the legs these cuts are 3 8 of an inch in from the edge of the leg and they're cut at 60 degrees to horizontal i've got the legs lined up perfectly on the side and double check to make sure they're oriented at 10 degrees to the table before making the cut anyone with a left tilt table saw is justified in snickering at this point because i've got to add an odd auxiliary fence so that i can make these cuts on the left side of the blade in an operation that's considerably easier on a left tilt model this unusual raised offset fence allows me to make the cuts like this without the little off cuts ending up as bullets shooting out the back of the table saw a few of the offcuts do launch out the back of the table saw but they're not trapped in a confined space that does damage well whether you're making two legs eight legs or twenty legs congratulate yourself if you've made it to this point and the legs for your master carpenter footstool look like this because the hard part's over and we can turn down the stress dial considerably while trimming up the waste material in between the three wedge tenons on the top of the legs i'm the first to admit that there's plenty of youtubers out there who are better at performing a tenonectomy than i am but i'll show you the process i came up with and that i used and leave that decision up to you my first thought and first attempt to remove the excess material was with a multi-tool but i didn't like the results i was getting so i switched to tactics because the angle on the top of the legs tilts 10 degrees in this direction and i want to get a nice clean cut to follow that 10 degree slope i came up with a special fixture for guiding the cuts all it is is two straight blocks with 10 degree bevels on one side that are attached to each other with screw blocks to keep everything lined up i made the guide with a snug fit on the leg so to use it i just slip it down on the top of the leg make sure the shoulders of the tenons are lined up with the top faces of the guide and then clamp it firmly in place a few taps with a hammer make sure everything is lined up perfectly and i can set about performing the tenonectomy this is the same setup i started off with and even using this guide block the oscillating multi-tool wasn't doing a very good job of making these cuts so i did a little experimenting and came up with another system and that system involves a few simple tools a thin erwin pull saw a coping saw and a sharp chisel because the little bits of tenon on the outside edges of the legs are accessible it's really fast to slice those off with that delicate irwin dovetail saw i wish there was a way to use the irwin saw initially for cleaning up these bigger pieces but last there is not so i choose to deploy a coping saw and the key for this step is to remove the bulk of the material while making sure the cut doesn't drift and spoil the workpiece of course cuts like this are always trickier when working around the camera and a tripod while trying to do precise work next i'll use a sharp edge and a quarter chisel to clean up the flat spot in between the remaining tenons once i've got a flat spot that's an inch and a quarter wide i can deploy the little erwin dovetail pole saw and clean up the rest in short order another nice feature of using this metal glide clamp block is that it prevents the faces of the leg from chipping out as i drive a chisel through the difficult grain even if my choice of tools and sequence is a bit untraditional it doesn't take long to perform this quadruple tenanectomy and i'm quite pleased with that result like with so many things practice makes perfect and by the time i get to leg number eight i've got the sequencing process down pretty solid and you can see by the running stopwatch that it doesn't take long to finish up and you can see something as simple as a change of clamps can make a big difference in productivity and accuracy when i'd say a lap time under five minutes including stops to record voice over is quite acceptable especially considering that i probably spent the better part of a half an hour on the first leg just getting things set up organized and decided because this is woodworking and not cnc machining a bit of fussing is in order to get a good fit of the tenons and the mortises after deciding which leg i want to go where i marked them for location and set about the fitting process with files to make this lag fit here i first tune up the inside of the mortises with the medium file this file has one edge with no teeth called a safety edge and it allows me to file in the corners to square them up without any change to the adjacent edge this initial filing removes any roughness or burrs in these mortises to get a true read on how the tenons fit it's a real nice initial fit everywhere so my next move is to use a knife file again with a safety edge to clean up the faces and edges of the tenons to see how that improves the fit because this is a very sharp file a little bit of effort goes a long way so i approach this step with caution so that i don't undersize the tenons of course every tenon fit up is going to be a little bit different but it appears that the outside two tenons are just a little bit wide so i'll make another adjustment and go from there in this step i'm using the toothed edge of the file to expand the sides of the mortises a little bit and clean up roughness there that's probably restricting the fit after another round of filing i'm liking the fit so i'll slip the top onto the tenons and tap it home with a rubber mallet the fit is still too snug so i continue to sneak up on it with filing and fitting until i get a smooth fit between the tenons and mortises when i get to the glue up stage the shape and design of this knife file allows me to file just the root of the tenon which seems to be where the fit problem is at this point and now i'm confident that this leg will fit here engaging by this final fit i think you'll agree that i was right of course the slight gap between the top of the leg and the bottom of the stool will get tightened up and closed up during glue up later with the legs complete and all the handling necessary to fit the tenons into the tops done i was able to take them to the fine folks at vanway trophy here in rapid city to have next level carpentry and the toolbox logo etched into the face of one leg of each of the stools to work out logo size and placement on these legs i started by printing out the logo and text full scale and then positioning those printouts on the face of the leg to get a crisp image when engraving wood with their laser the folks at vanwy asked me to first spray a coat of lacquer on the area that was going to be engraved this prevents heat and smoke from the laser engraving process from staining raw wood and provides super high detail in the finished logo i want to give a hearty shout out to troy zoller and his team there at vanway trophy for working through the details on this kind of project for me and a special shout out to robbie because she runs the laser machine there at vanway and knows just how to set up the machine to get results like this predictably and consistently and before i segue from making legs to making rails i'll stop at the bench to drill stress relief holes in the base of these wedged tenons if you recall earlier i laid out for a 3 16 inch diameter hole to be drilled at the bottom of the tenon wedge slot you can certainly drill these holes freehand but because i've got quite a few to drill and i want consistent placement i made up a simple drilling guide that allows me to drill the holes accurately and quickly the drill guide consists of a block with a 3 16 inch hole drilled through it and that block is in turn glued to a long straight block that helps orient the drill guide block to use this drilling guide i just clamp a leg in the vise and orient the long flat bar up against the face of the tenons then using a long sharp 3 16 inch diameter brad point bit and plenty of rpm i'm able to easily drill that stress relief hole through a tenon it's kind of tricky to shoot video of this drilling process in action but i think you can get the gist of it with this the jig allows me to drill the holes without clamping it but i'll use a clamp here so you can see the drilling process in action once i've drilled the relief hole into two outer tenons i reposition the drilling fixture and run the long brad point bit through the stress relief hole in the outer tenon and through the drill guide block to drill the stress relief hole in the center tenon and using the drill guide the sharp drill bit and a steady hand i'm able to drill those three stress relief holes without building up any extra stress that i need to relieve and i can use the little irwin dovetail saw to clean up any fuzz or burrs that might remain in the bottom of that tenon wedge slot because of the angles involved and the height of the rails off the floor it'd be tricky to measure their exact length using a ruler so to make it easy on myself because nobody else is going to i'm going to use a couple of special blocks to determine the length of these rails if you remember the legs slope at 10 degrees so each of these blocks has a 10 degree angle on one end and because the top of the rail will be four and a half inches off the bottom of the legs i made these two blocks exactly four and a half inches wide and i think you'll see using these blocks is much easier than using a ruler these blocks allow me to set the legs at exactly 10 degrees off a horizontal surface by using a small squeeze clamp in the big round hole drilled in the end of each block and you can see as i tighten the clamp that the legs are pulled to exactly 10 degrees off the horizontal surface of the workbench as long as the legs are pulled tight to the blocks and the blocks sit flat on the work surface i can establish the exact length of the rail for this stool by driving the screw between the two blocks to hold that setting and you can see by the two arrows on the top of these blocks how the length of the rail from this stool varies from the other 24 inch stool that i made in this batch to double check i moved the measuring block to the other side of the stool just to make sure everything is copacetic before transferring this established length to the two rails for the stool and that double check tells me that everything is in fact opacity because the top of the blocks are exactly four and a half inches up off the bottom of the legs the top of this measuring block represents the length of the top of the rails for this stool so all that i need to do to determine the length of the rail minus the tenons is to transfer the length of this measuring block onto one of the rail pieces that i had cut for the stool earlier so i clamp one of my rails to the measuring block and transfer the length from the block to the rail using a small machinist square i make sure to leave enough length on the block at each end to add 7 8 of an inch extra length for a tenon on each end then i use the steric protractor square to extend those lines across the face of the rail then i use a small block of scrap cut exactly 7 8 of an inch wide to add another mark that will represent the overall length of the rail next i tape the two rails together temporarily with a piece of frog tape and cut them at 10 degrees on the miter saw so that's perfectly matched for length because the rails are three quarters of an inch thick and the mortises are only 9 16 of an inch wide i need to shave three thirty seconds of an inch off of each face on each end of the rails to make the width of the tenon fit the width of the mortise because the end of the tenon is angled i need to shade that three thirty seconds inch off the face of the rail following the same angle to shave that three thirty seconds of an inch off the face of the rails to make tenons i first set the blade height to the 7 8 of an inch shoulder mark i put on the face of the rail then using a setup block i used earlier i set the rip fence to shave three thirty seconds of an inch off each face of the rail and the fence setting is three thirty seconds of an inch less than three quarters of an inch although in cases like this i tend to approach the final cut cautiously for an optimal fit of the tenon in the mortise once i've got the blade height and fence set to my satisfaction i rest the rail on the 10 degree angled end and run both faces past the spinning blade to form the two cheeks of these tenons and a quick test fit of the tenon cheek cuts tells me everything is set up just right for a smooth but snug fit in the mortises now proceed cutting the rest of the tenon cheeks with the same setup and i really like this method and sequence because i'm cutting a perfectly clean angled shoulder on the faces of these tenons at the same time with the cheeks of these tenons cut clean it's time to set up and cut the two shoulders of the tenon according to layout lines made earlier because these cuts are oriented at 10 degrees to the sides of the rails and perpendicular to the ends i made a special auxiliary fence for the miter guide on the table saw this tenon cutting fixture for the miter guide couldn't be simpler i ripped the block of scrap about four inches wide screwed one piece for the face of the miter guide and then cut a 10 degree angle on the end of another piece of the same scrap and what this arrangement allows me to do is to register the rail at a 10 degree slope so the table saw can cut perpendicular to the end of the rail to shape the tenon i start by aligning the top mark for these tenons with the saw blade and then sliding the fence piece with a 10 degree angle on it to hold the work piece in that exact position then i use a large jaw of ice grip to clamp the angled fence to the auxiliary fence to make the cut because i haven't changed the saw setting since cutting the cheeks on the tenons the blade height is already set so making these cuts is fast clean accurate and easy next i unclamp the 10 degree angled fence to reposition it for making the cut on the other side of the tenon and then clamp it in place to reposition the fence for making these cuts how slick is that and naturally while i'm at it i reposition the fence one more time lower the blade about a quarter of an inch and cut a slot directly in the middle of this tenon for the expanding wedge that will be driven during glue up and in case you don't remember lowering the blade for this operation leaves me a spot to use as a guide later when i drill the small stress relief holes in these tenons after defining the general shape of the tenon with the table saw it's time to trim away waste on the shoulders to finish defining the tenon this could be done by taking multiple passes on the table saw to slice away that waste material but i choose to do it with that fine irwin dovetail saw so i clamp the rail in the vise to hold it in a good working position if i did this sort of work all day every day i could probably do an acceptable job of making the cuts freehand using that erwin dovetail saw but i think that would be a case of a lazy man working the hardest so i spent a few minutes making a little 10 degree angle cut block to help speed up the process and make it more accurate this angle cutting fixture is just a square block of wood with a slot cut in it by using multiple passes on the table saw with a regular blade the slot is identical in width to the rails for the stools and i've cut a 10 degree angle in two orientations on either end of the block and by taking the extra effort for making that block all i need to do to cut these shoulders clean quick and accurate is to line up the correct angled end of the block with the shoulder of the tenon then line up the dovetail saw on the angle the end of the block and slice away that waste material from the shoulder of the tenon there's a little more waste material on the bottom edge of the rail but the process is the same and using the opposite end of the cutting guide block i cut away the waste here almost as quickly and i think a simple block like this gives me an excellent roi for the time spent making it because placement and alignment for the stress relief hole in these tenons is less difficult and less critical than in the tenons on the tops of the legs i just do them freehand using a sharp 3 16 inch diameter brad point bit and you can see how the little extra material at the bottom of the slot provides a center point for the brad point bit as i drill these holes because the stool gets a tray in the bottom i want to cut a slot in the bottom edge of the rails to accept that tray and this is as good a time as any to cut those slots because the material i'm using for the tray on this stool is only seven thirty seconds of an inch thick and my dado blade only goes down to a quarter inch i'm just using a rip blade in the table saw to put that dado in the bottom of the rail when doing the tenon layout earlier i mentioned that i raised the tenon up so that the slot cut for the tray won't cut off part of the tenon so i set the distance from the fence to the outside of the blade to equal the distance from the edge of the rail to the bottom of the tenon a long dado running parallel to the grain so close the edge is going to make the bottom edge of the rails a little bit weak so i want to keep the dado depth to a minimum and keep it as high as i can which is what this setup allows i'm confident that a dado that's 3 16 of an inch deep is going to provide enough of a ledge to support the tray in the bottom of the stool and keeping the depth to a minimum retains strength in that thin strip of wood that'll support the tray so i've set up the table saw to cut the top of that groove and the blade's curve is three thirty seconds of an inch so i'll make these dados in two passes to end up with the seven thirty seconds of an inch width for that little dado so the first pass leaves me with a groove that's three thirty seconds of an inch wide and three sixteenths of an inch deep and the groove is just below the bottom corner of the tenons since the width of the dado is more than twice the thickness of the blade i move the fence over just a little bit after making the first pass to remove material from what will be the center of this groove when it's finished this pass makes the groove wider but doesn't establish its finished width after i've run that second pass on all the pieces and make a final minor adjustment styling the width of the dado for 7 thirty seconds of an inch and finish plowing these dadoes because i ultimately want the trays on the bottom of my stools to be removable i raised the blade another three sixteenths of an inch to deepen the dado on one of the rails to three-eighths of an inch to make that possible i'll explain more on that later and to get this done i repeat fence settings from earlier and make three more passes at 3 8 of an inch that third pass completes the dados these rails need to accept that bottom tray because they're the same width but different depths and you'll see why later with mill work and joinery on the rails complete i disassemble the stool assign tenons to mortises with small identification marks and then as before use files to dial in a snug fit of the tenons and their respective mortises and a fit like this is what i'm after for each of these wedge tenons and their respective mortises it's snug but smooth which will make for a stress-free glue up but also provide a nice clean fit in the final assembly as i finish fiddling fussing and filing to fit these tenons i'm pleased to report that because of accurate fixtures and setups i get a nice clean fit without a whole lot of extra effort and that i couldn't be happier with the initial dry fit of the stool at this stage of the build now with the build at this stage it's obvious what's going to be needed for wedges to drive in these tenons on the stool i need six of them that are an inch wide for the top and i need four that are 9 16 inch wide for the ends of the rails in the legs in true bob ross fashion these tenons can be made of a wide range of different materials depending on whether you want them to blend or contrast and because i'm in the contrasting wedge camp i've chosen to use wenge or wenge for the wedges on this particular stool i only have a small scrap of that wenge wood for the wedges on this stool so it's going to be a bit of a trick to cut this odd shaped scrap into the wedges needed for the stool and because i only have a limited amount i'm going to end up using carry wood for wedges on some of the other stools and because these wedges are most typically made out of a rare and expensive hardwood i'll show you a few tricks that i use to get the wedges out of these small pieces with a minimum of waste and an absence of danger just as divide and conquer is a great strategy for tackling big projects combine and conquer is a great strategy for tackling small ones like making small wedges for the tenants on these footstools to employ combine and conquer i started by cutting the carry wood block into some smaller pieces that are the same width and approximately the same thickness as the piece of wenge wood that i already have so i'll take the pieces that are the same width and approximately the same thickness and combine them with a couple pieces of scrap wood of an arbitrary width but approximately the same thickness by using starbonds medium ca glue to combine them into one larger piece so that i can conquer the planing process on all these small parts and strong quick setting starbond ca glue makes this process both practical and possible because it takes just a few minutes to connect four pieces of hardwood with two pieces of scrap wood for the thickness planing process as per usual i use a soft lead carpenter pencil to add squiggle marks to the top and the bottom of this glued up assembly both to keep track of the planing process and to highlight it for viewers because the top surface of this carry wenge sandwich is the most uneven i'll start with a number of light passes so i don't shock the glue joints with the stress of a heavy pass to even it up all at once with four progressive light passes on the top surface to plane the sacrificial boards and the pieces of hardwood to the same thickness and one light pass on the bottom of the sandwich to clean up glue and make sure all the surfaces are smooth and consistent i've combined and conquered to mill these small pieces to a uniform size for the next step the hardwood pieces are all the same thickness and approximately the same width i go back to the table saw to finish milling these parts to the uniform size i need for the next step i start by ripping away one of the sacrificial pieces of pine off of one side of the sandwich because these cut edges will become glue joints i take the open face sandwich back to the jointer and take a light pass off the cut edges that i just made then i take the sandwich back to the table saw and cut away the remaining sacrificial edge since it's done its job by holding the pieces together and eliminating snipe on the hardwood pieces to ensure that i get a nice clean cut on these four pieces as i cut them away from the second sacrificial edge i'll use ca glue to hold the pieces together while making the cut because one edge of these blocks is jointed flat and smooth and the other edge has a straight clean saw cut on it they're in great shape for the edge glueing process that comes next how's about that for combine and conquer well this is a bit embarrassing to admit but as it turns out that whole combined and congress thing that i just showed you is well unnecessary because the piece of wenge that i started out with was too thin in the first place so i wasn't able to cut pairs of back-to-back wedges off the ends and gang-cut them like i intended but i'll leave the sequence here in the video because it is a good process and sequence for milling small parts to consistent size but where the video is concerned i'm just going to go ahead and proceed and cut these wedges out of these same pieces and you'll see that the only thing that i really need is a piece of material that's flat on one face has parallel edges and has a square cut on one end it ends up being a little more steps and a little more work than edge gluing these together and gang cutting a whole batch of the wedges at one time but because of the limited amount of material i have this is going to work anyways and it's just as well another little added thing here is that knowing that i'm producing these wedges in this manner means that i can use a piece of true gaboon ebony that i had stashed away in a box and i'm going to actually make this wedges for this stool out of ebony and i can use the wenge for the douglas fir stool i think and kerry would for the rest of the wedges and i'll show you how simple it is to make these wedges even with the parts i'm starting off with are small if you recall the slots for these wedges are an eighth of an inch wide and the mortises that they fit into are expanded at two degrees on each side so each wedge needs to have a four degree taper to it to expand the tenon two degrees on either side to fill the four degree expansion in the mortise it's the same thing only different on the tops of the legs as it is on the ends of the rails i used a piece of the sacrificial material from the combined and conquer planing process to dial in the setup and make this little sample wedge the wedge is about an inch long starts at about an eighth of an inch thick and tapers to this thicker end at four degrees so it fits snug in the slot and as the wedge is driven in it expands that tenon and you can see that this little sample wedge was cut off the end of one of the combine and conquer pieces by cutting it right off the end like that you can see that i've installed an ultra thin kerf blade here to minimize resistance as i cut these wedges and that blade is tilted at four degrees towards the fence keeping in mind that this is a right tilt table saw the height of the blade is set to one inch which determines the length of the little wedges that i'm cutting and i'll show you what this looks like using a piece of that sacrificial pine material because it's a little more visible in the video notice that i am using a near zero clearance insert for this operation so that the piece feeds steadily past the blade and doesn't drop down through the throat plate and this is what the wedge looks like after making that cut the wedge on this side is the right thickness and the right length to work for these wedged tenons but the piece on the other side is too thin because the piece itself is too thin you can see how if this piece was a little bit thicker i could get two shims back to back but that's not the case this time to finish cutting the wedge we'll just go to the miter saw and cut the end off the work piece just below the bottom of the slot cut on the table saw the main drawback from the fact that the piece of wenge was too thin is that although i get two shims out of this process only one of them is thick enough to work for these tenons but as they say quesara syrah i think that's italian for that's the way the cookie crumbles but don't quote me on it the good news is that now that i've crawled out of that rabbit hole i went down into making these pieces i can use this setup to cut up all the wedges i need for all four stools with very little time and very little effort by cutting a wedge on both ends of all the pieces and then cutting the wedges off the ends of the pieces at the miter saw like before and all i can say is wow those are wonderful wingy wedges as it turns out the combine and conquer effort was not totally wasted because to get the last few shims out of these precious pieces of wood i ended up edge gluing them all together and using a feather board to make that four degree angle cut for the last few tenon wedges in a gang cutting process quite like what i imagined in the first place i must admit that i spent an inordinate amount of time making these wenge wood wedges but that's just the way it goes sometime and because i need to make six wedges one inch long for the tops of the stools i ended up gluing the wedge segments together in pairs so that the cuts work out right to cut six tiny wedges one inch wide and four even tinier wedges at 9 16 of an inch wide i came up with a cutting fixture to use with that ultra thin kerf blade on the table saw the jig is just a scrap of wood with a slot cut in it the slot is cut with the same four degree taper as the wedges so that it holds the pieces snugly in place i set the rip fence at one inch for the width of the wenge wedge and with the wedge wedged in place use a scratch hole poked through a tiny hole to hold the wangy wedge without wobble to use the fixture i drop a wide wedge in the slot and slide the edge of the wedge up against the rib fence so it's aligned with the edge of the fixture then use the point of the scratch hole to hold it in place while i make the cuts and it takes just seconds to cut three wonderful wenge wedges with only a tiny wanky wedge wasted when it's all done after cutting six wide wenge wedges i flip the fixture and used the opposite end to cut four wee wangy wedges 9 16 of an inch wide for the tenons and the end of the rails using the same sequence but a different strip fence setting the big difference in cutting these wee wangy wedges is that there's a little more waste without and i think you'll agree that these wanky wood wedges are wonderful wouldn't you wow those wanky wood wedges were a workout weren't they well the cool thing is that with the wedges wiggled loosely in place and the stool dry fit and assembled it's already strong enough to bear my weight without wobbling so let's move on to the final fabrication step which is the tray for the bottom of the stool and i gotta say that all three of you viewers that are still watching this video are pretty amazing so kudos for your perseverance and it's time for the final bit of fabrication to make a tray for the stool earlier when i was sliding the rails i mentioned that i want the tray on this stool to be removable and the only real difference is the depth of the slot in one of the rails but the tray itself is the same width and the same length but if you choose to make the tray in your stool permanent you would cut it and dry fit it at this time because it needs to be installed during glue up but for this stool the tray won't actually go in until the stool is complete i've got the stool laying on its side for clarity and the rail with the 3 8 inch deep slot is on the bottom and the rail with the 3 16 inch deep slot is on the top and i'll mention that there's two reasons that i want to make the tray on this stool removable the first reason is that i decided to use plexiglass for the tray because i think it'll be a classy touch and plexiglass is going to scratch over time and i'll need to replace it and don't want to disassemble the stool to do it the second reason is that the stool will be much easier to finish without the tray in place and when it comes to finishing easier is better to measure the width of the tray so it's removable i drop a ruler down in the 3 8 inch deep slot and measure up to the top rail to determine the maximum width of a tray that can be slipped in and out when the stool is assembled and as you can see the measurement is exactly 7 inches so i've cut this scrap of plexiglass seven inches so you can see that all i need to do to install the tray is to drop one long edge down into the deep slot wiggle the other edge into place adjust its position and then slip it into the shallow slot in the other rail because the tray is 3 8 of an inch wider than the space between the rails on the bottom of the stool it's supported by 3 16 of an inch of wood on both sides which is more than adequate for strength and years down the road when the tray is scratched or the stool needs to be refinished i can use the removable feature to slip the tray out for refinishing and or replacement if you choose to make the tray in your stool permanent the tray is the same width and the same length both rails will have a slot that's only 3 16 of an inch deep and you'll install the tray during glue up which is actually the way my last stool was made and it worked fine for 25 years because i know the tray needs to be seven inches wide i'll rip a piece to exactly that width using a thin kerf rip blade and the table saw and a slow steady feed rate which cuts plexiglass like butter although it's a lot less messy because i want a nice clean fit between the tray and the legs of the stool i switch to the 10 degree bevel zero clearance insert and put a 10 degree bevel on one end of the seven inch wide strip that i just cut next i use a rail from the stool to determine the length of the tray by lining up the 10 degree bevel on one end and marking it on the other then use that length mark as a guide to trim the tray to its final length and to allow for any movement in the tray or the stool while it's in use i cut it a skoshe short so that it doesn't bind and cause problems after cutting i pull the protective plastic off the plexiglass so it'll fit in those slots and use a deburring tool to take off razor sharp edges because i don't want to cut myself and bleed all over a new foot stool while installing the tray to keep the tray from shifting and falling out during use i'll use a strategically placed plum screw to keep it in place i marked the center of the rail from end to end and put a mark 3 16 of an inch in from the inner edge of the bottom of the rail now i drill a 13 64 inch hole tangent to that 3 16th of an inch center mark and drill down through the bottom of the edge of the rail into the dado below now with a little dab of wax on the threads of the plum screw i drive it down until it's flush with the bottom of the rail and that holds the tray securely side to side so that it can't shift and fall out during use but it does allow the tray to be shifted 3 16 of an inch so that it can be removed from the stool whenever necessary naturally it looks much more difficult than it is because i'm trying to do this performance with the camera rolling i don't know about you but i'm going to guess that you're either getting really sick of this job by now or you're getting very excited because it's getting so close to the end i'm not going to tell you what i think on the matter but i can tell you that i'm thankful to be on the home stretch and ready to do some final prep before glue up because glue up is the last hurdle to be cleared before spraying a finish on these stools and finishing up the project i can also tell you that whatever your thoughts are on the status of your project they're directly proportional to how many stools you're building so whether you're loving life or hate and life let's get into final prep for the stool parts so we can bring this thing in for a landing the good news is that the final steps for prepping these stools before glue up are pretty simple and pretty straightforward i start by disassembling the stool and then ease all the exposed edges of the legs and the rails with a 3 16 round over bit and the bosch colt router this prevents those sharp edges from splintering gives the stool a softer look and makes it more user friendly in general once i'm done with the legs and rails i switch to a 45 degree bit in the bosch colt router and put a small chamfer around the perimeter of the top of the top next i set the jointer fence to a 10 degree angle and take a pass off each side of the stool's top so the bevels on the sides of the top match the bevels on the ends finally to ease the edges on the underside of the top i switched to a quarter inch round over bit in my d handled bosch router to compensate for the obtuse 10 degree angle on the edges i use a smaller diameter bearing and stack two of them to position the cut of this round over a bit as close to tangent to the bottom and the angle as i can get the end result is a little less than ideal but it's easily sandable from here and even though the routing is a little less than ideal it sure beats shaping the whole edge with a sanding block and those steps put a very pleasing and useful profile on the edges of the stool's top because the milling sequence i use on every part of this stool ends with a pass through the dw735 thickness planer the amount of sanding required is kept to a minimum making the final sanding process on these stools a bit less mundane is the fact that i'm using total boat spar urethane varnish which doesn't require the wood to be sanded to the level of say a gel poly so i start an end with 150 grit sandpaper on the stool parts notice that i start the sanding process with a sharpened putty knife to remove any ribs left by nicks in the planer knives or burn marks left behind by the router bits after a pass or two with sharpened putty knife on the rough spots it takes only a few licks with sharp 150 grit sandpaper on a stiff flat sanding block to finish up the sanding process i know the sanding is complete when there's no router burn marks pencil marks or irregularities in the surface of the wood left behind 150 grit sandpaper on this stiff hard sanding block makes quick work of sanding the surface smooth without spoiling the crispness of any of the edges or details that i don't want rounded off i used murk a sanding screen disc it's an excellent choice for sending rounded corners like these because it's fast and won't leave a faceted edge like i might get by using that stiff flat sanding block so i use the sanding block on the flat surface and the sanding disc on the rounded corners and in no time at all all four faces are sanded and the shoulders of the tenons on the end of the rails are still crisp and clean for a nice tight glue up i use the same bag of tricks to remove drudgery while sanding the legs for the stool as well because clamping them in the vise holds them firmly scraping with a putty knife removes ridges that would take a long time to sand out and it holds the piece at a good working height notice i use a couple of auxiliary support blocks in the jaws of the vise to help support the wide leg for the sanding process this particular leg has a slightest bit of snipe on the inside face near the top and a skewing stroke with that sharpened putty knife helps to cut that away quickly and greatly minimize the amount of sanding it takes to make everything flat and smooth to remove that thin coat of lacquer i sprayed on the sides where the logos were laser etched i switched to a best block for demanding sanding with 120 grit belt on it so that i can sand the surface flat and smooth without the risk of softer or smoother sanding paper spoiling the crispness of the logo i can remove some of the lacquer with a sharpened putty knife but it still takes a bit of elbow grease to get this leg down to the bare wood so that i get a uniform sheen and tone of the varnish finish later after removing most of the lacquer with 120 grit belt i switch to a best block with a 150 grit belt on it to finish sanding this leg flat clean and smooth removing that lacquer was more work than i anticipated but i think in the end you'll agree it was like hashtag well worth it even though it involves extra clamping steps using the vice to hold the leg while sanding ends and edges allows me to get an excellent job in relatively short order and a minimum of pain and suffering and did you even know how well a sharpened putty knife works to remove burn marks from wood well now you do of course there's the added benefit but mahogany is such a wonderful wood to work with because it's so easy to sand shape and remove burn marks to leave a beautiful finish behind i finish up sanding legs by clamping them edgewise in the vise and using the same tools to sand edges and corners to clean them up so they're ready for varnish because i'll end up belt sanding the top of the top later after glue up to flush up the ends of the wedge tenon i leave the top surface alone for now use the same sanding sequence tools tips and tricks to sand the underside of the top so it's ready for varnish after glue up it might come as a shock to some viewers that i do this final prep sanding with a sharp putty knife and a hand sanding block but because i've done my homework and paid attention during the milling process these surfaces are already near perfect and need very little sanding to finish them up and believe it or not it's faster to do that sanding by hand in my opinion than to break out a random orbital sander to do the work and because of a sharp blade and a blade stabilizer in the table saw i'm able to use hand sanding even on the end grain to clean it up with only a few strokes and minimal effort any of you watching this that are prone to cynicism and think this still looks like a lot of work keep in mind that this top is made of solid ash and i'm sanding end grain so i stand by my opinion that this is pretty quick and easy all things considered now even though i've got a toil away and finished sanding up all these stool parts i'll catch up with you guys in a few minutes to dive into the glue up process next well that takes a while and it's not much fun but at least i still hate sanding right well really truth be told it wasn't that bad at all and all the parts are in perfect shape for this glue up i've got all my arsenal of stuff here uh hammers for putting things together tight bond three glue a little dihydrogen oxide in a bottle sawdust can't do without that wenge wedges for the rails and a couple other miscellaneous tools and as many of you know a glue up can be kind of stressful i do everything i can ahead of time to minimize stress i.e dry fitting everything time and again making sure everything goes together like it's supposed to but on these stools i'm doing one more thing to cut the stress in half and to do that i'll only glue and wedge the rail tenons but the top will get dry fit at this stage so that i only have four joints to pay attention to and clean up not ten because in this case divide and conquer is a better approach to help the glue up go more smoothly i've staged all the parts and supplies here so they're available when i need them and you can see the numbers that show where parts go are still showing after the sanding process so i'm going to dive into this and see how it goes for a wedge tenon the basic sequence is to generously coat the tenon with glue all the surfaces inside and out and to line the mortise with glue as well so that glue goes to glue and press a piece in place and i'm happy to get a little bit of squeeze out around the joint when it goes together i can do this for both tenons because i've already dry fit everything i know it goes together like it's supposed to although i do try to hold my tongue right and cross my fingers whenever i can during the glue up the tenons on the second leg are a little trickier to glue up but working quickly and efficiently i slather them with glue and slip them together in pretty short order and i try to remember to soak the glue soaked brush in a little cup of the hydrogen oxide to clean and preserve the brush for future use and i got glue red and everywhere and that is basically a good thing like i said i'm going to dry fit the top making sure i line up the right end with the right leg and all that does is help everything stay organized during the clamping process because the top is dry fit in place it helps to align everything and keep things organized during the glue up process so i use long squeeze clamps to apply pressure to the bottom of the legs and make the joint between the rails and the legs snug while the glue sets with the tenons all glued up and clamps holding everything in place i butter up a couple of wenge shims with glue slip them into position and with everything set drive them in until they expand the tenon and everything is snug in place ironically at this stage the glue acts more as a lubricant to drive the shim into place than it does as an adhesive but its function quickly changes after the last tap of the wedge and doing my best to work quickly and efficiently i flip the stool end for end and repeat the process of gluing wedges and driving them into place and you can definitely tell when the tenons are fully expanded and the wedge is driven home both by the sound of the hammer blows and the firm seated position of the wedge when it can't go any further once the wedges are glued and driven into place i do my best impression of a one arm paper hanger and get busy cleaning up glue squeeze out from these wedged tenon joints notice that i'm not using warm water and wet rags to clean up glue squeeze out because i think that practice is counterproductive and frankly absurd especially when you see how well a little bit of guy glitter and a sharp putty knife does the job while the glue is wet and virtually eliminates any cleanup issues later after the glue is dry naturally glue cleanup on the outside of the legs is far less of an issue than glue cleanup where the rails meet the insides of the legs because the outsides will get belt sanded later after the tenons and wedges are trimmed off so i quickly get busy cleaning up blue squeeze out on the ends of the rails where they meet the insides of the legs it's difficult to get a good camera angle for this cleanup but you can take my word for it that it goes nearly as quick and works equally well as it does on the outside of the legs notice that most of this cleanup is done with confident strokes going with the grain taking advantage of the sharp corners of the putty knife to get into the tight corners where the rails meet the legs and it takes just a few minutes to clean up everything that matters on these glue joints this is difficult to get a camera angle for clarity too but i want you to see how i clean out the ends of the grooves and the insides of the rails using a piece of the plexiglas tray material cut to a 45 degree angle that slips into the slot in the rail to quickly remove the little glob of glue that accumulates there and of course i can't complete a glue up like this without whining a little bit about how much more difficult this is because i've got to try to maintain a camera angle and talk about what i'm doing as the glue setting up and getting difficult to remove but i guess the upside is that you can see how well this process works even in strained conditions where glue sets up in warm weather and joinery is complex and that ladies and gentlemen concludes phase one of the master carpenter footstool glue up process because of the assembly sequence and the fit of all this joinery i'm confident that the legs are oriented at 10 degrees to the top and to the horizontal surface below and that all the assembled angles are consistent and everything is in place even though a wedge tendon joinery like this is strong enough that i can remove the clamps while it's still wet i ended up waiting almost 24 hours to do the second stage of this glue up because i wasn't really pressed for time to get this segment done so i can remove the clamps and top confident that everything will stay together during the second stage of the glue up to keep from spoiling the engraved logo with glue i completely cover it with two inch masking tape and to make glue cleanup easier i add strips of two inch tape along the top of the legs as well with that little preventative measure i eliminate a major stress factor of this glue up because it's one less thing to stress about as i apply glue to the tenons and mortises because of the number of tenons and the surface area that needs to be glued i've got the shop a little cool and make sure the fan is shut off so none of the glue tacks up before i slip the top into place working quickly and efficiently i use four long squeeze clamps to pull the top down tight to the top of the legs to make sure the joint is tight underneath before driving wedges a quick check with a 10 degree angle block tells me nothing shifted as i was clamping the top down even though it was only a minor concern because of the amount of time the first glue up had to dry confident that everything is in its proper position and clamped up tight i get to do one of the funnest parts of the whole build and that is to drive wenge wedges into the tenons to lock everything into place forever and always i slather more glue around the tenons to fill any little gaps that might be there and then slick up the tenons with a coat of glue position them and tap them into place and with one final whack that wanky wedge won't wiggle even though it's not that important on the top surface i use guide glitter to soak up glue squeeze out to save myself a little bit of trouble later when i belt sand everything flush and with any luck glue cleanup on the underside of the stool's top will be quick and easy too because i took a minute to cover things up with masking tape earlier when scraping aggressively i'm careful to go only with the grain to clean off that glue squeeze out so that only a light touch is needed when scraping across the grain to remove the last bit of gooey glue well observant viewers might notice by the clock on the wall that it's almost 4 30 which means it's pretty much the end of the day if you look really close you'll see that it's a friday so it's also the end of the week and the most observant next level carpentry viewers out there like danny dodge will notice that it's december 31st and it's new year's eve so i'm calling it a year and all that's a good thing for another reason because i can give this glue plenty of time to set up because i'm not going to take these clamps off until next year so happy new year well that does it i finally finished gluing up the last of four stools and cleaning up the last of 40 wedged tenons so i can finally move on to the next step and that's a great way to start out 2022 isn't it and while glue dries on stool number four i'll go back to work on stool number one to pop this thing out of the clamps because the glue should be plenty dry because it's been drying in these clams since last year so it ought to be set by now don't you think that is one solid stool and i'm thoroughly pleased with the way the glue up and clean up and clamping went so now i can go about trimming tenons the trick to trimming tenons is to sufficiently secure the stool and i'll rely on the bench habit to make that happen successfully trimming tenons is a little tricky so to make it simpler i draw a pencil line around the perimeter of each of the tenons to keep an eye on the trimming process because the last thing i want to do at this stage is mess something up while trimming these tenons and now with the stool secure i grab my irwin dovetail saw and carefully cut off the tenons being careful not to cut too deep into the leg which would ruin it but at the same time trim off as much as possible to minimize the amount of sanding needed next the sharp teeth and flexible blade of this little dovetail saw makes quick work of the trimming process even though i chickened out a little bit because i didn't want to trim them too close and spoil the face of the leg in the process so i've got a bit of a stub here to sand down but with a sharp 120 grit belt on my belt sander i sand the tenons down flush in short order keeping an eye on those perimeter pencil marks so i know when to stop sanding because the tenon is flush to the face of the leg [Applause] i'm running this bit of video at real time speed so you can see just how quick this flush sanding process is once the pencil marks disappear i know the sanding is done so i can use that flat sanding block with 150 grit paper to remove the 120 grit scratch the belt sander left behind and believe it or not that is all there is to that my anxiety level trimming the tenons on the other end of the stool flush is considerably lower because i don't have to worry about spoiling a laserette's logo this time this one is what it looks like when i don't chicken out and cut down nice and close to the face of the leg [Applause] with that complete i reposition the stool and trim the tenons on the top and naturally i use the same steps and sequence for this and now with 10 tenons trimmed it's time for a little touch-up sanding this final prep for varnish oh yeah i start at the bottom with the stool turned upside down and systematically sand and check all the surfaces of all the pieces because i've done my homework there's very little to do at this stage but this attention to detail assures me that the finish of the stool is next level carpentry like the logo says i use the america sanding disk on rounded corners and the sanding block on flat surfaces but stop to use the putty knife if i encounter an errant bit of glue or router burn in the process like with any project final sanding of this stool is mostly a matter of going over every square inch of the project or for those of you who identify as metric going over every square centimeter of the project with a sharp putty knife a piece of sandpaper and a sanding block to make sure that pencil marks and bits of glue are gone and everything is clean consistent and smooth before applying the varnish finish i make it easy on myself by positioning the stool so that the surface i'm sanding is accessible and the stool is supported so it doesn't wiggle around too much although i think the admonition of never sanding against the grain is kind of misleading i do pay attention at this stage to make sure that i am standing with the grain so that no scratches show up in the final finish as expected i'm not finding much with this final sanding other than maybe peace of mind knowing that the finish will be flawless once i'm finally finished fussing i'll blast the compressed air completes the cleaning process and no doubt excites best control extremists the world over i think you'll agree with me that after that final prep and sanding this stool is ready for some varnish and while i appreciate that agreement we all know that a project can look 100 complete only to have a few errant glue spots show up when the final finish is applied and produce unacceptable results in the case of this stool where the wood is mahogany which is a bit softer and more porous it's more prone to soaking up glue so i take one final step to make sure that in fact the glue is 100 cleaned up so to make that final check i break out my convoy uv light this is a very powerful long wavelength uv light there's some specification for the length of uv light and even though i use titebond glue for this not a uv visible type glue this light is plenty strong enough to make dry glue pop out so i can clean it up and for it to be most effective i'll shut off the shop lights so now you can clearly see that despite all my due diligence there's some spots of glue left behind that look like smeared lipstick that needs to be cleaned up before applying varnish i think it's pretty amazing how perfectly prepared everything looks under the natural lights of the shop and how much residual glue is visible under the uv light when the shop is dark the best news is that once the uv light highlights the glue it's fairly easy to scrape off with a sharpened putty knife so that the pre-varnished prep is indeed as good as it looks even though i spent a good 10 minutes on this final clean up detail i remain convinced that i've got less of a mess to deal with and it's easier to clean up than if i did my initial glue squeeze out cleanup with water and rags instead of a putty knife and that it's far better to catch that kind of cleanup before applying varnish than after now that i'm finally finally ready to put some varnish on this footstool i want to talk about total boat i've been mentioning the brand and the product since early in the video and at this point i want to make clear that this video is not being sponsored by total boat totalboat did reach out to me some time back to see if i was interested in trying some of their varnish and epoxy products in the next level carpentry shop my initial impression is that total boat and jamestown distributors is a legitimate company that offer products they stand behind and so although this isn't a sponsorship they did send these products free of charge so that i could try them out on projects in the shop and i've used them on one previous project and liked everything about the product and the company so i decided to showcase the halcyon clear rugged clear gloss varnish it's a waterborne product and i decided to use that on these next level carpentry footstools on the 25 year old footstool that i'm replacing i used a minwax spar urethane this was a brush applied product it's considerably yellowed over the years the product has an amber cast to it starting off and i didn't want to use that finish or that application method for these next level carpentry footstools so i decided to switch to a waterborne varnish but it's still a spar varnish so it's very very durable it's got a water clear appearance to it so it preserves the natural color and tone of the wood which is a plus and because it's total boat for marine use it's got extremely good uv protection which is another good thing for a carpenter foot stool that's often out on the job or in the back of the truck exposed to sunlight and uv light the carpentry environment is nowhere near as harsh as a marine environment so i'm really excited to use this product on these stools i did some experimenting on it and because i'm really not a brush a brushing guy they do supply foam brushes for applying the varnish it can be rolled or it can be sprayed i'm almost totally a spray guy so that's how i've chosen to apply this finish to the stool i'll add a caveat here about spray applying this varnish on a project like this and unless you've got a considerable amount of spray experience with a particular piece of equipment i wouldn't really recommend it i've been spraying products for years ever since the 1970s when i was doing bodywork and this is this is tricky it's not because of the product so much as it is the configuration of the project and the spray gun that i've chosen to use to apply the varnish this is an automotive spray gun it's made for spraying varnish of a much thinner viscosity versus the full body high solids consistency of this varnish but because of these years of experience i'm able to force this system to work with that varnish i've already varnished a couple stools for practice just to kind of figure out what's going on and if it was possible and even though total boat says that you can reduce this up to 20 percent with clean water i've decided to use it full bodied to minimize the risk of running but i'm not sure that i'll always stick with that going forward it's a lot harder to spray the product at full thickness because of the spray fan is limited et cetera et cetera but for a project like this that's difficult to spray in the first place it's important that i use the product at full consistency so it's able to hang on the surfaces because i want to do everything i can to prevent any runs or drips all that said i want to tell you that i initially planned on using this graco cordless airless sprayer i got the smallest tip that they have and while it would be fine in pushing the varnish considerably better than that gun this is just too big and clunky to spray in and around this stool without getting runs drips and curtains on it in the process and you'll see in a minute another reason that i chose to make the tray removable on the stool because i need to manipulate the spray gun in and around the project in a manner that just wouldn't be possible with a fixed tray everybody in the audience that's more familiar with brush applied varnish is steps ahead of me on this because it's much easier to apply varnish on a project like this with a brush than a sprayer but to me applying varnish with a brush is a lot like sanding and it's way up there on the tdm scale so much so that i'm willing to go through the extra difficulty of spraying the finish to get the results that i want on the finished project that caveat alone should explain why i don't intend this section of the video to be a tutorial in spray applying total boat varnish but i hope it gives you an idea of both the challenges and the benefits of spray applying a finish if you're willing to tackle the learning curve to do it but for now i want to give a shout out to sophie who's the marketing director there at totalboat and jamestown distributors to thank her and to thank them for the cool t-shirt and this halcyon varnish product that's going to protect this master carpenter's footstool for years and decades to come please keep in mind that as i go through the spray application process that i'm not a representative total boat i don't work for them i'm not an osha representative i'm a carpenter in a shop using a waterborne varnish to finish a stool i encourage viewers to geek out to whatever level you want for safety precautions etc etc read what's on the label do what makes sense to you use common sense and determine your own best practices what you're about to see is like i said just the nail bender in the shop put some varnish on a stool total boat double bags of varnish during shipment to prevent any spillage or leaks but i've never had any trouble with that it's always packaged quite responsibly as you can see the halcyon clear gloss varnish comes in a bag instead of a can and so you mix it by squeezing the bag rather than using a stir stick i find everything they say about the varnish to be true and although it takes a little bit of getting used to i do kind of like varnish in a bag instead of a can the clear gloss varnish doesn't have as many solids in it as the satin or dull finishes so it doesn't take as much time mixing but i mix it up pretty well just the same and now you get an idea of the viscosity of the product as it comes out of the bag and i add enough to the cup gun so i don't run out halfway through the first coat compared to lacquers it's kind of thick but compared to latex paint it's kind of thin for viewers that are experienced with spray applied finishes and or using a cup gun i'll give you a few things that i've learned about the product so far like i said or like you just saw it's a pretty thick material and for this automotive spray gun i've gotta jack the pressure way up i've got the material knob completely open and i'm using a very narrow spray pattern to apply the finish if you decide to use total boat varnish and apply it with a brush it's it applies and acts pretty much like any other waterborne varnish waterborne varnish is different than oil-based varnish but if you've had any experience with waterborne varnish and a brush the application and performance of the various coats is very similar one of the nice features of a waterborne product like this versus a standard lacquer is that it stinks a whole lot less but i'm still going to wear a mask as i apply this mainly because the amount of atomization i get because of the high pressure that i'm using to get the varnish out of the gun and onto the stool and long last here goes i've got the stool upside down on the work surface so i can coat the undersides before flipping the stool over and putting the finishing touches on the tops i developed the spray sequence you see me using while practicing on the first two stools and here yet again you can see why it was important to have a removable tray in the stool to facilitate the spray application of varnish at this stage i do the underside of the top first then the insides of the legs the outsides of the legs and finally the insides and bottoms of the rails and using that specific sequence allows me to pick the stool up by the ends of the tops to flip it over and position it on pyramid sticks so i can finish the first coat on the tops of the rails and the top of the top if you're airing out the shop i use a fan in the furnace to accelerate the drying time of this first coat of finish on the stool and for anyone who's not familiar with using a waterborne varnish this is exactly what the first coat should look like it's a mixture of gloss and haze rough and smooth depending on how absorbent the wood under the varnish is and as you'll see the important thing is that i've got a good uniform thick first coat on to seal up the wood before subsequent coats now you can see what one coat of total bolts halcyon clear rugged clear gloss varnish looks like on the stool after drying for two and a half hours in the shop with the fan and the furnace blowing on it that first coat also highlights that even after all my due diligence i missed a couple of spots of glue on the edge of this leg but since it's just the first coat those are easily cleaned up before the second coat is applied you can hardly even see those stubborn glue spots until i zoom in on them with the camera but there are a blemish on the stool so i'll remove them quickly now and rather than removing them with sandpaper at this stage i go back to sharpen putty knife and scrape them off with just a few licks and then smooth the surface with 320 grit sandpaper so it's ready for a second coat of varnish the sharpened putty knife quickly scrapes through the varnish and removes the glue spot much faster and much better than sandpaper alone more recommended times for drying and re-coating are concerned every brand of varnish is a little different and total boat is no different did i say that right well the specs for this varnish say that in normal conditions it can be re-coated after one hour up to 12 hours without sanding the surface after 12 hours the surface needs to be sanded with 320 grit sandpaper before a second coat can be applied well this is under three hours so i could apply the next coat just by spraying over this but i never put a second coat on without actually sanding the first coat so that's another nice feature this varnish and a warm dry shop is also a factor but even in a relatively short period of time three hours versus 24 hours this total boat varnish is more than dry enough to chalk up when it's sanded so i can get a nice clean uniform surface without just plugging up a bunch of sandpaper and getting frustrated so that's the next step sanding varnish is still sanding and i don't really care for it that much but to make it easy on myself i flip the stool upside down and do the sanding in the same order as i did the spraying i'm using 3m's purple no slip 320 grit sandpaper for sanding this varnish because it's sharp and long lasting and makes the process as painless as possible i hope you can see with this camera angle how the 320 grit sandpaper quickly removes the sheen and levels the surface removing any bumps and imperfections in the wood since the grain was raised by the waterborne varnish and drying you can see with the chalky residue left on the surface from just a little sanding that this varnish dries hard because it's sand smooth without gumming up the sandpaper notice that the direction i'm sanding with this fine sandpaper really doesn't matter i can go across the grain with the grain or whatever i want whichever makes the sanding process quicker and more efficient i make a special point of sanding as tight into corners as i can because that's where roughness wants to hide most and the hallmark of a good finish is clean smooth corners i check my work as i go by using a soft cloth to remove the powdery residue so i can see the actual condition of the varnish finish left behind after sanding it's not necessary to remove every last bit of sheen at this stage but i do want a nice flat uniform and consistent surface left behind before applying the second coat one of the risks of going with a spray applied finish is that you can make a pretty big mess in a pretty big hurry using a spray gun compared to using a brush poor technique the wrong equipment or the wrong product can lead to nasty runs and difficult dry spots if you're not careful but you can see on the inside of these legs where spraying was difficult because of restrictions of the stool the worst i have to deal with is a little bit of unevenness in sheen but that stands out quickly because the sandpaper is sharp and the varnish is dry in truth sanding the rest of the stool is mundane routine but i tackle it with determination and in a bittersweet irony support the new stool on the old stool to finish up sanding the last face of the last leg and i finish up by wiping the surface with a soft cloth to inspect the sheen followed by a blast of compressed air to remove the chalk from the engraved logo and i'm going to guess that sanding took me about a half an hour and fyi i used only one third of a folded sheet of sandpaper to get it done which makes a clear statement about how much i like this varnish because as i'm sure many of you know you can go through nearly a whole sleeve of sandpaper when you're using the wrong varnish if it stays gummy or doesn't flow out to a nice even finish and requires 10 times more sanding well after a few tedious hours of spraying drying and sanding this stool doesn't look a whole lot different than that stool that doesn't have any varnish on it yet but that initial coat of varnish penetrates into the wood and raises the grain and now that it's all sanded smooth and clean there's very little inconsistency left in the surface of the wood so the second coat of varnish will be all it can be like you saw i used compressed air to blow powder out of all the nooks and crannies and the engraved logo on the stool so all i need for a final prep before applying the second coat is to wipe the surface down with a cloth and i'll spray it with dihydrogen oxide to help attract the dust and that'll pick up that residue and leave the surface dust free and proud going in to that last coat of varnish by spraying the cloth rather than spraying the wood i get a more consistent dampness of the cloth it really picks up that dust nicely the instructions from total boat talk about doing this final cleanup prep with a rag sprayed with alcohol but i must have been doing something wrong because when i tried that it left a weird grit on the surface so i switched to using dihydrogen oxide on the cloth instead because it makes the surface clean smooth and ready for varnish with no further ado since i used up the last of my ado hours ago i'll spray the second coat of total boat varnish on this master carpenter footstool in the same sequence as the first coat because i'm spraying over varnish and not raw wood the finish lays down a little bit differently but by using it full strength it hangs well on the surface and i gauge the application process by using reflected light from the shop lights to make sure that i get a nice even full wet coat on the stool and this is exactly what a spray applied coat of halcyon varnish is supposed to look like no runs no drips no errors i let the second coat of halcyon clear varnish on this stool dry for more than 24 hours but that was more because of schedule than necessity and i want to give you a close-up view of what the second coat of varnish looks like and what do you think of the luster and sheen of the varnish on the end of this stool well i think it's more than acceptable and how about the top of the stool that's pretty sweet if you ask me so the only real issues i see with this second coat are a slight unevenness on the underside of the top and the inside of the legs where the unevenness of the coat is still unacceptable to me but that's understandable because total boat recommends two to three coats on the clear varnish for interior application and although i'm getting heavy wet coats with the spray application i'm gonna go ahead and add a third coat to the stool just because i can i am gonna switch to the rugged clear satin flavor of the halcyon varnish for that third and final coat on the stool because a satin finish was my intent from the beginning totalboat recommends that build coats be done with clear and the satin to be applied on the final coat i'm a little uncertain about some of the application instructions because on the back of the satin finish it talks about four to six coats for an exterior application on the clear it talks about two to three coats for an interior application of the clear and i'm not quite sure what the difference is there but because i know that the two coats that already on here is a full consistent very protective coat i'm comfortable with finishing the stools up with a third coat of the satin and that i'll have more than adequate protection on the stools so it's back to the sanding mites to prep the second coat so it's ready for a third so i break out a fresh sheet of 320 grit sandpaper number it for efficient use fold it into thirds and dive in for my favorite activity ugh sanding and while i toil away sanding i want to tell you that if you've got any questions about best practices for using total boat products just call our tech support team where you can talk to a real human who's knowledgeable about the product and motivated to help you find answers to your questions so that you can get results like these on your project and the good news at this stage is that each successive coat of varnish sands faster sands easier and comes out better than the one before it so this final sand is pretty painless and comes out perfect as i switch from the clear gloss to the clear satin varnish for this final coat it's important to mention that the satin has a dulling agent that can settle out in the bottom of the pouch so i make sure to knead the pouch and mix the contents thoroughly before pouring it into the cup gun the appearance and viscosity of the clear and satin are so close that i can't really tell the difference by looking at them and that's a good thing because it assures me that both products should dispense the same as i spray them onto the stool applying this final coat is a case of third verse same as the first two and by appearance alone you wouldn't know i was spraying the third coat on unless i told you so hey guys i'm spraying the third coat here just to make sure that i'm getting the best performance out of this gun that i can i tore the gun down and did an extensive cleaning between the last coat and this one i'm thankful to see that that really made a difference because the flow rate and transfer rate applying this coat is much better than the previous two so i'm feeling better about getting a consistent sheen i've got to say that i'm quite pleased with the way this satin poly is flowing out on the third and final coat for the stool it went on smooth and shiny so i'm confident it'll dry to a nice even satin sheen over the next hour anyone with experience spray applying varnish knows that overspray is always a concern and i'm happy to address that concern by telling you that this stuff is remarkable it hits the surface smooth and wet but the overspray quickly turns to a powder even on something as close as my tool chest so there's no sticky residue to clean up later only a heavy layer of dust when it comes time to clean up the shop after allowing that third and final coat of varnish to dry on the stool overnight i sanded completely with a piece of the world's finest sandpaper to remove the slight bit of roughness that forms on the surface of the varnish as it cures the slight bit of roughness is so fine that you won't be able to see it in the camera but you might be able to hear it if i hold the microphone close and rub the surface with my hand the noise you hear now before i sand the surface is my fingers on my nude particles of dust and overspray that cure into the finish as i sand the surface with the world's finest sandpaper which is actually nothing more than a brown paper bag that's equivalent to about 10 000 grit sandpaper you can hear it remove those particles and now after i've sanded the surface with that brown paper bag you don't hear my hand on the texture on the surface of the varnish anymore because the brown paper bag removes the slightest bit of roughness and overspray leaving a wonderfully silky smooth finish behind and if you've ever tried to remove that super fine texture on a varnish finish with anything but a brown paper bag say steel wool or 600 grit sandpaper you're really going to be impressed with the difference this technique makes because it smooths out the surface by removing that fine layer of dust but doesn't affect the sheen of the varnish the same way steel wool or superfine sandpaper do to keep it real i do need to tell you that the world's finest sandpaper is not magic and while it does a great job of making a fantastic finish amazing it won't do anything for a bad finish in the way of removing roughness from a dry finish or removing runs from a finish that was applied too wet and too heavy it's absolutely the best way i've ever learned to get a silky smooth finish and a fine flawless satin sheen but after that once over this total boat finish is everything it can be and i'm ready to finally finish this footstool so final installation of the tray is sweet slick and simple with both the stool and tray upside down i slipped the long edge of the tray into the deep slot a full 3 8 of an inch then line it up on the other rail of the stool and pull it back 3 16 of an inch to hold it in place and then drive in that blub screw to lock it in place so it doesn't fall out during use and that makes this duel d-u-n done so i can wrap up this video with an ending as abrupt as the final kiss on a hallmark rom-com by saying as always and until next time thanks for watching hello hey matt jordy leave for the day yo uh is anyone still here okay not funny uh i need a little bit of help here does anyone have a number for that bourbon moth dude so i can give him a call and ask how he gets down from his monster cabinet projects when he's done shooting his video thumbnail photos i mean he does it all the time so there's got to be some sort of a trick to it right well i guess i gotta try something well that was easy go figure

Channel: Next Level Carpentry

Views: 2,132,382

Keywords: footstool, foot stool, master carpenter, joinery, mortise, tenon, tendon, tennon, next level carpentry, bench, stepstool

Id: sxBsNEYp140

Length: 151min 1sec (9061 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 10 2022