Stools for friends

On Saturday I made stools for a friend and her friends. The stools are 9 inches wide by one foot long. The stools are aproximately 7 inches tall. My friend is a beautician in a beauty parlor. On day a customer stood up on the rung that customer set their feet on when the chair is raised or lowered. Well this is a modern parlor and the chairs are not bolted down. Since this was a customer of some bulk the chair tipped over. The result of that, is the rungs that you rest your feet on were all removed. It leaves the customers feet dangling. I made a stool for my friends feet to rest on and all the other beauticians wanted one. That is why there are three. It has been too wet here to remove the wood filler by sanding so they are in the stage before staining and putting the varnish on.

Now I will explain how to make them. The first thing is to get a couple of 2 by 4 scraps together. I ripped the two by fours into 2 by 2's. Then I set my chop saw to a compound 10 degree cut that is ten degrees accros the board and a ten degree slant at the same time. I then cut the legs all 7 inches long. When you look at the pictures you can see the legs butted so it forms a kind of slanted rectangle. I ripped some 2 by 4's to a 2 inch width. Then I cut two 7 inch and two 3 inch boards for each stool. These I cut at a 10 degree angle on each end in a v shape. After the wood was cut, I presanded it with a 120 grit finish. Then I put the wood pieces together with screws and glue. On most corners there was room for two screws on each joint. On tip is, the legs go so the peak of the cut is on the inside corner of the leg. That leaves a level surface to put the top of the stool on. After I had assembled the stool leg systems I made the tops. This was a three foot pine board recovered from a packing crate that had mirrors in it. I ripped the board to a 9 inch width and then cut it into three 12 inch pieces. Then I spent a couple of minutes cleaning the rough wood with a grinder with a sanding disc on it. Then I used a random orbital sander with 36 grit to clean it up a little more. The corners of the 9 by 12's I had knocked of with the chop saw set at 45 degrees just so I did not have to do so much grinding. Now the wood has dried for a couple of days, I will sand the wood filler off with 36 grit and finish sand with a random orbital sander and 120 grit. Then I will stain to taste and put on spar varnish.

These stools are fast, easy and very strong. They are not fancy, but very popular and fun to make.

This is my fun thing. It helps my friend, gives me something fun to do, and with that, it has a few twists.

Wooden Circles

Today I experimented with wooden circles. I made two different sizes of 6 sided ones and one 12 sided. I started with some left over 2 by 4 pieces. I ripped them into roughly 2 by two lengths. I used my table saw to do the ripping. I just stood a 2 by four on edge, then I slid the fence over to it. Then I laid it back flat to rip it. That gives you two pieces of wood and one small sliver.

After I had my pieces of 2 by 2 done I got out my $20 Craigslist chop saw. I was going to make the six sided circle first. I had it figuged that a circle is 360 dgrees. That led me to divide 360 by six and I got 60 degrees. Well if you have used a chop saw they don't go to 60 degrees. But a chop saw set on 0 actually makes a 90 degree cut. Well I figured, in my head, that I could make the cut on the end and it would be 60. I would set the saw at 30. Well, as in most things, I should not have been figuring. I had the numbers right, but misunderstood the situation. It turns out that if you just make a 30 degree cut across the piece, it is actually the correct cut to make a six sided circle. If you want to make a 12 sided circle, use a 15 degree cut and make 12 pieces. It still doesn't make perfect sense to me, but as you can see in the picture, I did make a 12 sided circle. I will use the skill I learned to build something at a later time.

What I learned and it is just my notion, is that I can sit and think about it till the cows come home, but I have to do it to learn anything from it. Also what I set in my head with thought can be 180 degrees from the tue workable answer.

tools you need to process palletts and packing crates

Let me start by explaing that it takes a little bit of a free approach to make things of value from something that is destined for dumpsville. A little bit of experimenting and trying new things will help alot.

I use tools that are not all that specialized. A crow bar and a hammer are necesssities. However those are just for aquiring your wood. You also need to have a way to sand it, since most of the wood looks like packing crate and pallet wood. For sanding I use a 4 inch right angle grinder with a fibre disk and a 5 inch random orbital sander. For cutting the wood I use two main tools. The first is a chop saw I got on CraigsList, and the second is a Table Saw I bought at Lowes home improvement for $130. After I have cut and sanded the pieces, I glue and screw them together. I use Tightbond for glue and a cordless 18 volt drill to screw them together. I predrill and countersink all the screws, then use wood filler to cover the holes. I never use a pattern and very rairly consult any kind of woodworking book or magazine, as they usually do not have information that specifically applies to my projects.

This is general information you need to get started, but I also want to talk about where to aquire this abundant source of free wood. Since packing crates are the better of the two, I will list a few companies that have them continually. The main source I have for packing crates is Don's Mobile Glass in Modesto CA. All glass comes in packing crates and a large glass company will generate a lot of scrap wood. Since a lot of the glass comes from china, you would figure that the wood is some junkie chinese wood. Well it isn't so. Most of the chinese glass is packed in pine that is shipped raw to China from Eastern Oregon and Eastern Wasington. When you get those crates, they are great because they rough saw them and they usually clean up to more than an inch in thickness. The other items in my area that come packed in decent wood are all power equipment, motorcycles, watercraft, and dairy equipment. If you put it together you will find all the wood you can use in your own area. When you embark on this woodworking path you will be ablt to make mistakes without a lot of cost. That is the secret to learning a lot pretty fast.

Let me introduce my terminally ill self to you

I started woodworking just recently. Just a little over three years ago I started building bird houses from scrap wood. Coincidentally at that time My ocular melanoma that had cost me my left eye came back in my liver and armpit. At the time I was living a in trailer park in Atwater CA (Aluminum Heights). My neighbors would come by and ask what I was doing and tell me how great I was. One day I was standing there doing some sanding and I decided to build a bench. I built a two foot by one foot bench and was standing looking and admiring it when my neighbor came by and said "it needs a back". I replied "I wonder how I would put a back on it", since he was actually describing a chair.
Well I kept building bird houses, bird feeders, and planters until I had thought it out. Then I built a kids chair. Then I saled it up and built an adult chair. It turns out most chairs lean the back at a ten to fifteen degree angle away from the seat. If you do that and do not kick the back legs back you wind up with a very tippy chair. Well it took some thought to figure it out, but I did and built the chair. It turns out the secret of the chair is one of the secrets of life. Most chairs use one piece of wood for the back and back leg. That requires bending the wood. I guarantee that bending the wood that you found or was given to you is a sure recipe for frustration. Instead of asking the wood to do something it cannot do, use it the best way you can and within its limits and it will suit your needs. That is life and how it comes at you and the secret of how to enjoy and succeed at life.