Thread: Three-leg bar stool

Originally Posted by Kidbee

Nice tools Derek! However, I could not help thinking that Arbortech is a WA born manufacturer of a range of power carving tools that would hollow those seats out in a jiffy. But that may be sinful for a traditionalist wood craftsmen like yourself!!

There are two issues I have with the Arbortech: firstly, they create a LOT of dust and noise. That is not restless or healthy. Secondly, they do too good a job of removing waste. Before you know it, you can have removed more than you planned.

I would look at this differently if making seats commercially, or making a lot - efficiency then becomes a primary consideration. I hear good things about the Festool Roted sander's dust control. Doug, have you used one of these?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Arbortech for me. Did too many as an apprentice with handtools. One batch was 120 for a restaurant out of some gnarly foreign s#*t. Baaa Humbug!
A good positive pressure dust mask and ear protection and you're cruising the Islands. Once you get the hang of the Arbortech you can near write with it.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

I hear good things about the Festool Rotex sander's dust control. Doug, have you used one of these?

I have one (back in Oz), the earlier 150 mm model and it's dust collection is pretty good -- but I'm pretty certain that even with a super soft pad you can't really follow the contours of a chair seat.

But what I'd really like to now, will these stools be true Windsors, or will you be making extensive use of glue and wedges?
(a true Windsor relies on an over dry tenon swelling when inserted into a wet mortice with the joint locking when the tenon absorbs moisture to return to EMC and the mortice compressing as the leg dries to EMC.)
For a stool, the seat as shaped would be hardwood well above EMC and the legs a softer wood well below EMC.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

I hear good things about the Festool Roted sander's dust control. Doug, have you used one of these?

Sorry, Derek, I have not.

Derek

I have not been a fan of sanding machines for may years because of Dust and Noise issues. However I recently bought Festool 150 mm Rotex and dust extractor and was very impressed with the Dust extraction.

I have not used this on a surface such as a Windsor Seat and would hesitate to do so because of the significant variance in the surface, although the 90mm Rotex may handle it OK.

Regards

Originally Posted by ian

I have one (back in Oz), the earlier 150 mm model and it's dust collection is pretty good -- but I'm pretty certain that even with a super soft pad you can't really follow the contours of a chair seat.

But what I'd really like to now, will these stools be true Windsors, or will you be making extensive use of glue and wedges?
(a true Windsor relies on an over dry tenon swelling when inserted into a wet mortice with the joint locking when the tenon absorbs moisture to return to EMC and the mortice compressing as the leg dries to EMC.)
For a stool, the seat as shaped would be hardwood well above EMC and the legs a softer wood well below EMC.

Hi Ian

Based on your definition, the stools will not be true Windsors. The tenons will be kiln dried Hard Maple and the seat kiln dried Black Walnut (both from the USA). The tenons will be tapered and wedged.

I am in the process of drilling 6 leg holes to the seat - if 3 legs are questionable for stability, then I will have 6!

This will allow me to experiment with 1 at the front/2 at the rear, 2 at the front/1 at the rear, and 4 legs (one in each corner).

Regards from Perth

Derek

In truth I haven't finished reading through the posts on building the pine stool yet. I jumped forward to say I think the Esherick stools are beautiful. The Bern Chandley I really like too. Thanks for the pictures, I haven't seen a lot of stools.

Originally Posted by Kidbee

Nice tools Derek! However, I could not help thinking that Arbortech is a WA born manufacturer of a range of power carving tools that would hollow those seats out in a jiffy. But that may be sinful for a traditionalist wood craftsmen like yourself!!

Kidbee, I suppose if you are familiar with an Arbortech and can control it well, it would be a good tool to do the roughing-out, particularly if you were doing a large batch. However, you may be surprised at how quickly you can shape a chair seat with the right tools & a bit of practice.

There are probably an infinite number of ways of going about it, but the principles will be the same: rough-out then refine. The three tools I use are, scorp for roughing out, a small double-radiused plane (i.e. it is radiused front-to-back & side-to-side) to begin refining, followed by a travisher with a longer radius to level the tracks left by the plane. I've only just made the travisher, following Derek's post on making his, a couple of months back. Prior to that, I would follow the plane with coarse cloth-backed paper and a curved card scraper. A bit of hand-sanding completes the job in an hour or so all-up, using the typically softer woods favoured for carved seats, such as Pine & Jacaranda.

The hardest part is keeping the carving symmetrical. I find it helps to drill some strategically-placed holes with a forstner bit, to set a series of depth points. Other than that, it's a matter of using your eyeballs & fingers to check. A tip from another chair-maker is to close your eyes and feel across the seat with finger-tips. That does seem to help you notice any differences between the sides.

Derek, I've been away the last week with limited internet access, & haven't been following this section. I would've chipped in with an opinion that I much prefer stools with 4 legs to 3. Three is easier & more forgiving to build, but 4 is more stable for the same footprint. I have a couple of low 3-legged stools and I have to be careful to place them so one leg is facing straight ahead, or I can quite easily do a back-flip!

However, I think this is a problem of low stools with their relatively small footprint. For many years it was my job to milk the house cows, and because they were so quiet, they were never leg-roped. I sat on a low 3-legged stool the old pot had cobbled-up in about 10 minutes (nearly all the woodwork done with a hatchet), shoved your knee against a back leg to make her move it back & away you went (snuggled up close to the nice, warm belly on frosty nights!). More than once, I sat down & grabbed a teat to start cleaning them, only to be tipped base-over apex by a (reasonably) gentle kick because the silly animal had managed to cut herself on a fence or something, & was feeling a bit tender! But taller stools automatically get a much wider stance, so stability is probably far less of a consideration.

Cheers,

Originally Posted by derekcohen

T.....I would look at this differently if making seats commercially, or making a lot - efficiency then becomes a primary consideration. I hear good things about the Festool Roted sander's dust control. Doug, have you used one of these?.......

Hi Derek

Agree with Basil. I have had a Festool ETS 150/3 for three years and a Rotex 90 since Christmas. Both are excellent, but I wished I had paid more and bought the larger Rotex 150 rather than the ETS. Festool sanders are a lot smoother, a little quieter, nicer noise (less unpleasant), and seem to sand a little faster, a little smoother than other sanders with the same paper. I have smoothed chair seats in Celery Top with the 150, no issues, and with the soft disk on a Rotex it would be a doddle. I think I get slightly better results with Abranet disks than with Festool white ones.

With regard to the dust issue:

• Festool ETS 150/3 with dustbag captures virtually all dust.
• Festool ETS 150/3 or Rotex 90 attached to vacuum captures all dust. Rub your hand on a freshly sanded surface and there will be no dust. Its uncanny.
• You cannot use a dustbag with the Rotex.

I am also impressed by the compactness and low centre of gravity of their new ETS EC series, but suspect that the versatility of the Rotex still pips it.

If you are interested then make a appointment and go down to your nearest or preferred Festool shop and play. Its called the narcotics approach to marketing.

Cheers

Graeme

Thanks for the comments Ian. In between writing reports and readying to return to work (you will say, "what's that?" ... swine! ), I have made progress with a stool in Radiata Pine to test out design, legs, etc. Gad that pine really is crapiata ... I am hoping soon to be able to post again, this time with something objective to offer. The thoughts are turning to 4 legs, however.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Graeme

I do have a few Festool tools. The oldest is a sander that preceded the 150/3. Mine is badged "Festo", as it is about 20 years old. It is a fantastic sander, nonetheless, and I like the Abranet disks (I use them with a Mirka hand sander more often ... that is a relative statement as I do not use the Festo sander more than a few times each year).

I do prefer scraping to sanding, not simply because it is dustless, but because the surface left behind is clearer. I can even scrape Radiata Pine!

This is scraping over a 400 grit (Abranet) finish ...



I decide on a sander vs scraping when it matches the type of finished surface the piece should have (in my opinion of the design). In the case of these chairs, it is still a toss up. The seat will be Black Walnut and the legs Hard Maple (USA).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by IanW

Kidbee, I suppose if you are familiar with an Arbortech and can control it well, it would be a good tool to do the roughing-out, particularly if you were doing a large batch. However, you may be surprised at how quickly you can shape a chair seat with the right tools & a bit of practice.

There are probably an infinite number of ways of going about it, but the principles will be the same: rough-out then refine. The three tools I use are, scorp for roughing out, a small double-radiused plane (i.e. it is radiused front-to-back & side-to-side) to begin refining, followed by a travisher with a longer radius to level the tracks left by the plane. I've only just made the travisher, following Derek's post on making his, a couple of months back. Prior to that, I would follow the plane with coarse cloth-backed paper and a curved card scraper. A bit of hand-sanding completes the job in an hour or so all-up, using the typically softer woods favoured for carved seats, such as Pine & Jacaranda.

The hardest part is keeping the carving symmetrical. I find it helps to drill some strategically-placed holes with a forstner bit, to set a series of depth points. Other than that, it's a matter of using your eyeballs & fingers to check. A tip from another chair-maker is to close your eyes and feel across the seat with finger-tips. That does seem to help you notice any differences between the sides.

Derek, I've been away the last week with limited internet access, & haven't been following this section. I would've chipped in with an opinion that I much prefer stools with 4 legs to 3. Three is easier & more forgiving to build, but 4 is more stable for the same footprint. I have a couple of low 3-legged stools and I have to be careful to place them so one leg is facing straight ahead, or I can quite easily do a back-flip!

However, I think this is a problem of low stools with their relatively small footprint. For many years it was my job to milk the house cows, and because they were so quiet, they were never leg-roped. I sat on a low 3-legged stool the old pot had cobbled-up in about 10 minutes (nearly all the woodwork done with a hatchet), shoved your knee against a back leg to make her move it back & away you went (snuggled up close to the nice, warm belly on frosty nights!). More than once, I sat down & grabbed a teat to start cleaning them, only to be tipped base-over apex by a (reasonably) gentle kick because the silly animal had managed to cut herself on a fence or something, & was feeling a bit tender! But taller stools automatically get a much wider stance, so stability is probably far less of a consideration.

Cheers,

Those milking stools only have three legs because the cow has the udder!

Yes, I can appreciate the hand tools are more accurate for that type of work and with no noise or dust particles as Derek pointed out. The downside to using the Arbortech carvers is the noise, chips and dust. I pray that oneday someone will produce an extra quiet angle grinder.

Some examples of Wharton Esherick inspired stools. Quite tempted to make it at some point.

https://fillingham.wordpress.com/tag/wharton-esherick/

Here is the perch stool in Fijian Mahogany I made recently at MGFW. It is my shop stool.

20171217_155249.jpg

The stool is 26" high, and the seat is 14 1/2" wide and 12" deep. Eventually, the three counter stools planned for the kitchen will have a Black Walnut seat and Hard Maple legs.


The prototype is incomplete - missing the stretchers. These are planned to span between the legs, in other words, there will be three stretches (ala Esherick). They are not added in these photos since I was experimenting with the number of legs (and there is a limit to the number of holes one can drill before everything just looks like Swiss cheese!).


The model was made from Radiata Pine. That is OK-ish for the seat, but a word of warning - it is horrible for legs. The wood is soft like tissue paper and fragile. I would have liked the legs to be a snitch thinner. That will be possible with the Maple.


The seat received 8 tapered mortices: 5 at the front and 3 at the rear. I played around with the placement of legs - 2 at the front and 2 at the rear, legs in line and legs wider at the front, 1 leg at the front and 1 leg at the rear. At the end it came down to four legs vs 3 legs.


I showed the four-legged version to my wife first ...











Then I showed her the three-legged version ...











What do you think she preferred?


Regards from Perth


Derek