My wife requested a small stool like the ones she remembered growing up in Taiwan, so and I came up with the design in the photo. I thought it would be a quick build, and it would have been except for one factor; the compound angles on the legs. They angle out in 2 directions, which quickly makes life interesting.
I wanted a 10 degree angle on both planes, but of course you can’t just set the blade tilt and miter gauge of the table saw at those numbers. After a lot of reading that included charts, setup blocks, or trigonometry (!), I knocked out a quick prototype of the leg assembly. The angles were not extremely precise, and I made the mistake of attempting to glue up the entire assembly at once. The result was humanely dispatched with my mallet.
I decided to try a more intuitive approach that seemed like it would work, and it did. I cut the legs oversized in length with straight cuts, and beveled just the bottom of the apron pieces at 10 degrees. The ends of each apron piece were also cut at 10 degrees. I assembled the 2 long aprons to the legs with dowels to form 2 side assemblies.
What made this process easier for me was building a simple sled (similar to a tapering sled), just a piece of plywood ripped to width with blocks attached to hold the side assembly square to the blade with the legs protruding off the edge. Then the blade was tilted 10 degrees, the legs were cut to the correct length, and voila, a perfect compound angle. I then flipped each assembly around so the top was protruding slightly off the edge, which produced a clean cut across the top of the legs and apron.
After the glue dried, the 2 side assemblies were connected with the end aprons and glued up. When dry, the now completed leg assembly was placed on the sled so the top of the 2 end assemblies could be trimmed flush with the 2 side assemblies to produce a flat, level top.
Since my wife was originally planning to use this in her garden with lots of outdoor exposure, I built it from some clear redwood that has been hanging around waiting for the right project. I tested several finishes, even though any finish will probably fade if left outside. I ended up using Rubio Monocoat because it didn’t yellow the redwood like most other finishes. As it turns out, she likes the bench too much to use it in the garden, so it will live indoors.
Sorry if my explanation isn’t clear. This whole process probably sounds complicated, but it’s really not. It was a fun problem to solve and build.
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Originally Posted by Ron Kanter
I’m close to retiring, so that should give me more time for woodworking.
