How to Make a Plywood Stool
Visit my website: https://www.ariswoodshop.com
The stool is made from ¾” thick birch plywood. Stool is about 8” tall and the top Is about 12” X 8 1/4”. I don’t own a table saw so I had the plywood ripped to 1-1/2” width. For the legs you need twelve pieces 6-1/2” long and ten pieces 8” long. For the top you’ll need six 12” long and five 9” long pieces. I noticed later in the project that there is a slight miss alignment on my sliding miter saw, I have to take a look at that in the future.
I used some regular carpenters glue. It seems I always cheap out with the glue and I should have used more glue but the stool seemed to turn out alight.. At first I planned to use brad nails during the glue up, but I decided just to clamp the pieces together. I used some scrap pieces of the same stock to space out the pieces. I don’t own that many clamps so I had to glue and clamp the other leg next morning before going to work.
After the glue had dried on the legs and on the top, the corners form a kinda finger joint or box joint. This is the joint that really gives the stool strength. The strength of the joint comes from large glue area. Once again I should have used more wood glue but the joints held my weight when I tested it so I not that worried. There was slight bowing on the pieces so I had to give it a little persuasion with clamps to close the joints. I used some sawdust to clean out the glue squeeze out.
I gave the stool thorough sanding with a random orbital sander. I started from 40 grit and went up to 180 grit.
Even though I tried to be precise there was still some gaps between the teeth and some voids in the plywood. Some of the inaccuracy is from the miter saw and the most is from inexperience. I mixed some sawdust with wood glue to make some filler to try to hide the gaps. It turned out pretty nice.
I finished the stool with three coats of water based polyurethane with light sanding in between. I was kind a worried that the veneers on the plywood would suck tons of lacquer but it didn’t take that much poly to finish the stool.
The stool is made from ¾” thick birch plywood. Stool is about 8” tall and the top Is about 12” X 8 1/4”. I don’t own a table saw so I had the plywood ripped to 1-1/2” width. For the legs you need twelve pieces 6-1/2” long and ten pieces 8” long. For the top you’ll need six 12” long and five 9” long pieces. I noticed later in the project that there is a slight miss alignment on my sliding miter saw, I have to take a look at that in the future.
I used some regular carpenters glue. It seems I always cheap out with the glue and I should have used more glue but the stool seemed to turn out alight.. At first I planned to use brad nails during the glue up, but I decided just to clamp the pieces together. I used some scrap pieces of the same stock to space out the pieces. I don’t own that many clamps so I had to glue and clamp the other leg next morning before going to work.
After the glue had dried on the legs and on the top, the corners form a kinda finger joint or box joint. This is the joint that really gives the stool strength. The strength of the joint comes from large glue area. Once again I should have used more wood glue but the joints held my weight when I tested it so I not that worried. There was slight bowing on the pieces so I had to give it a little persuasion with clamps to close the joints. I used some sawdust to clean out the glue squeeze out.
I gave the stool thorough sanding with a random orbital sander. I started from 40 grit and went up to 180 grit.
Even though I tried to be precise there was still some gaps between the teeth and some voids in the plywood. Some of the inaccuracy is from the miter saw and the most is from inexperience. I mixed some sawdust with wood glue to make some filler to try to hide the gaps. It turned out pretty nice.
I finished the stool with three coats of water based polyurethane with light sanding in between. I was kind a worried that the veneers on the plywood would suck tons of lacquer but it didn’t take that much poly to finish the stool.
Category
🛠️
Lifestyle