A stool is the most common piece of furniture in apartments and houses. The reason for this is the cramped living space or the versatility of this backless chair is not known for certain. But a rare family can do without a couple of durable and solid stools in everyday life. Due to mobility, this piece of furniture is loved and appreciated, because it can be used not only as a chair, but also as a stepladder, serving table, bedside table, the limits of operation are limited only by the owner's imagination. And the best part: a fairly presentable and durable stool can be made with your own hands, this will save money, increase self-esteem, and simplify the everyday side of life (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. A simple version of a stool is 4 legs and a seat measuring 30x30 cm.

If you are looking for information on how to make a stool, you are new to the tricky business of making furniture. In order for the end result of your efforts to fully meet your expectations, choose simple models, follow the instructions, listen to the advice of experienced craftsmen.

Figure 2. Tongue and groove connection is resistant to wobble, shear, compression, but not tension.

1. Do not choose models in which there is a tongue-and-groove connection (Fig. 2). Without sufficient skills, you will not be able to correctly assemble such a stool, and you will end up with an unstable and, accordingly, non-functional item.
2. Do not use chipboard for manufacturing. This material is quite fragile, does not fix screws well and crumbles on contact with hard surfaces.

So, after a brief educational program has been learned, you can begin to make an important piece of furniture with your own hands.

Materials and tools

Figure 3. Drawing of a stool.

To make a stool quickly and efficiently, you will need the following tools:

• hacksaw;
• drill;
• drill;
• Phillips screwdriver;
• corner and ruler;
• pencil;
• furniture varnish.

You can talk endlessly about the quality of the tool, and everyone selects models in accordance with their own needs. All tools must be durable, comfortable and suitable for woodworking.

The best material for the manufacture of stools and other pieces of furniture designed to withstand significant weight is solid wood.

Figure 4. The design of the stool.

It will withstand the load, and will delight with naturalness and a beautiful natural pattern. So, you will need:

1. Bar 30 * 30 mm - 4 pcs., For the manufacture of legs.
2. A board of arbitrary size, but not too large, 20-25 mm thick is the future seat. To make the instruction clear, take a board 145 * 300 mm. - 2 pcs. or 300*300 mm - 1 pc.
3. Plywood 12 mm. For connecting plates.
4. Pack of screws 40 mm long.
5. Furniture glue.
6. Sandpaper of large and small fractions.
7. Acrylic lacquer in your preferred or suitable shade.

You may be interested in: Connecting an electric stove to different types of electrical networks

If for the first time you are faced with the need or desire to make a stool or other furniture with your own hands, do not rush to immediately proceed to the most interesting. Check your calculations several times, check the drawings and mark the joints in advance, this will avoid repeated repetition of the same actions and damage to the material.

Back to index

Instructions for making a stool with 4 legs

Figure 5. Sketches of plywood chairs and stools.

So, all the tools are prepared, the materials are purchased or found in the bins, you can proceed to the creative and practical part (Fig. 3).

1. If you have one wooden beam, you need to make 4 legs from it or bring all existing ones into line. The optimal height is 430 mm.
2. The next step is to prepare the future seat. If you managed to find a board with a width of 300 mm, you will greatly simplify your task, cut off a part also 300 mm long, that is, you should get an almost finished square-shaped seat. If you couldn’t find a wide enough board, cut out 2 parts 145 * 300, they will serve as a seat.
3. From plywood, you need to make 4 parts with a size of 100 * 270 mm - these are fixing strips. On the long side of the part with a hacksaw, you need to make 2 grooves 12 * 50 mm. The distance to the edge of the bar is 30 mm. This design will serve as a stiffener, securely fix the legs and make the stool stable.
4. The blanks are in your hands, you can go directly to the assembly of the stool. Assemble the plywood parts into a single square structure by connecting them with grooves.
5. Using screws, connect the legs and the frame, having previously drilled pilot holes. For better fixation of the joint, it is necessary to coat with glue.
6. Attach the seat to the frame with legs according to the proposed scheme, not forgetting to glue all the joints with glue (Fig. 4).
7. Using sandpaper, first coarse, then fine, carefully sand all the details, paying special attention to the joints and places that the seated person will come into contact with.
8. Coat the stool with 2 coats of lacquer, leaving enough time to dry completely. And your new, hand-made stool is ready.

How to make a stool with your own hands, product drawings and the progress of work on the manufacture of a small and compact model.

Dimensions:

Height - 312 (mm)
seat size - 300 x 300 (mm)

The article describes the principle of constructing a stool, the overall dimensions of which can vary depending on the methods of its use and application. The place for the seat can be made from solid glued wood. Lengthen the legs.

When designing and manufacturing a product, we will be guided by the following:

Minimum details
ease of manufacture and assembly
structural strength during operation
long-term reliability
attractive appearance

Specification of the dimensions of the material used (length, width, thickness):

Side wall 219 x 50 x 22 (mm)
front wall 268 x 50 x 22 (mm)
leg 300 x 40 x 40 (mm)

Seat bar 300 x 45 x 12 (mm)

How to make a stool with your own hands, work order:

1. Make parts from dry wood according to the specification, strictly observing their dimensions, parallelism and perpendicularity of the faces.
2. Mark the center of the mounting holes.

Reference.

As a fastener we will use:
(confirmat) - for attaching the legs to the front and side rails
– for attaching the seat trims to the front and side trims

3. Drill holes in the parts to the desired depth, while strictly making sure that the centers of the holes in the parts to be joined are on the same axial line perpendicular to the edges.
4. Connect the legs (3) to the front (1) and side (2) strips with euro screws.

5. Attach the seat slats (4) to the assembled frame with wood screws.

6. Clean up the product.
7. Apply a protective decorative coating to the product.
8. Close the euro screws with plastic caps. Match the color of the plugs to the color of the decorative coating of the product as much as possible.
9. If necessary, put your trademark or brand on the product.

The stool is done. Design requirements are met. You can install a bowl on it and send it under

Mankind does not get tired of inventing a stool.
And this time the fight against triviality and banality gave a positive effect. There was a little imagination and material, but a lot of simple tools. This allowed the author to create an original design without a single nail and screw.

Tools used:
1) pencil;
2) eraser;
3) ruler;
4) triangle;
5) stationery knife;
6) hammer;
7) electric jigsaw;
8) manual jigsaw;
9) screwdriver;
10) two clamps;
11) file for wood;
12) sandpaper of coarse and fine grit;
13) pattern.

Materials needed:
1) paper sheet;
2) a sheet of plywood 15 mm thick, 2nd grade.

Manufacturing process:

Step one. Template preparation.
On a white sheet of drawing paper, using a ruler, a triangle and a pattern, draw sketches of two parts that will make up the stool. The one on the left is the sidewall of the structure, on the right is part of the seat; such parts will connect the sidewalls. The first part is obtained as follows: a rectangle measuring 42 cm * 36 cm is drawn, inside it are the contours of the sidewall, the width of the upper parts of which is 4.5 cm, and eleven grooves with a width slightly less than the thickness of the plywood, i.e. 1, 5 cm. Their depth is 2.2 cm. The length and width of the second part are 48 cm and 4.5 cm, respectively.

Step two. Template cutting.
After drawing, we cut out the details with a clerical knife with great accuracy.

Step three. Drawing on plywood.
We put the resulting templates on a sheet of plywood 15 mm thick and circle them: large - twice, small - eleven times. The lines are not bright, but quite pronounced.

Step four. Cutting details.
Now comes the central moment in the entire manufacturing process: it is necessary to obtain the details of the intended design. To do this, with an electric jigsaw, we cut them along the outlined contours. But the author sawed the lower boundaries of the grooves with a manual jigsaw, since it is much more difficult to do the same with an electric one.

Step five. Grinding.
Sawed parts should be brought to a pleasant and aesthetic appearance. Having clamped the crossbars with two clamps, we level them first with a file, and then we process them with coarse and fine grained sandpaper.

Step six. Picking up a stool.
Now all the parts are ready for assembly. Therefore, first we hammer in the two lower crossbars with a hammer and a wooden block, then the rest of the upper ones. Since the grooves are cut to a width slightly less than the thickness of the plywood, the crossbars will go into them very tightly. The stool is ready.

Conclusion.
It turned out quite an original beautiful stool. The bottom rails allow you to use it as a coffee table or a cat bed if you put a sheet of plywood on them. The disassembly of the stool is a plus for the time being. With an increase in the number of assemblies - disassemblies of such a designer, there is a drop in stability and, as a result, the stool itself. Also, the need to take it by the upper crossbars and rearrange it leads to loosening of the stool. For greater reliability, you can put the parts on carpentry glue when assembling the product.

The stool has no back or armrests. Therefore, if you decide to assemble such a structure yourself, you are unlikely to encounter any special difficulties in the manufacture of such a piece of furniture. In this article we will tell you how to make a stool with your own hands.

If you have never assembled anything like this from wood, then it is unlikely that you will be able to make a high-quality and reliable product the first time.

You can use a material that does not require any special preparation for assembly. It can be chipboard or regular 20mm plywood. I must say that chipboard is a rather capricious and fragile material in itself. Also, a stool made from it will turn out to be quite heavy. In addition, due to its demand, it will wander from room to room, which will sooner or later affect the integrity of the entire structure. Therefore, it is better to assemble a stool from plywood. It is also worth mentioning the fact that the chipboard sheet has dimensions of 2750 × 1830 mm, while the plywood sheet is 1525 × 1525 mm.

From one sheet of plywood, you can make three stools. To perform the work, you will need the following tools and supplies:

• Electric jigsaw with a set of saw blades for wood with fine teeth.
• Screwdriver.
• Joiner's square.
• Confirmed drill 5×50 mm.
• Screwdriver bits. It is better if it is a set, where, as a rule, there is a hexagon for confirmations.
• Sander or ordinary coarse and fine-grained sandpaper.
• Confirmations: 12 pcs.
• Furniture plugs for confirmations: 12 pcs.
• Self-tapping screws 4×16: 24 pcs.
• Furniture metal (can be plastic) corners: 12 pcs.

Preparation

First, we mark the future details in size. We cut with a jigsaw 6 rectangular elements measuring 400 × 300 mm (legs) and 140 × 248 mm (stiffening ribs), also 3 square parts (seat) measuring 330 × 330 mm.

The height of the sidewall (legs) should in no case be less than 400 mm, otherwise it will be uncomfortable to sit on such a stool.

On one of the parts, which will be our sidewall or leg, we need to cut out the radius. How to do it? You can use a compass, or you can use a large oval plate. Attach to the sidewall and circle a semicircle with a marker or pencil. Using a jigsaw, carefully cut out a rounded depression into the details. Then we apply the cut out part to the second side of the leg and do the same procedure. For a square part, which will be our seat, you can find a smaller round plate and also mark the radii on each side, you can also round the corners. We make cutouts. After the radii are made on all the details, we outline the places where we will have fasteners.

If you decide to make the seat soft using foam rubber and upholstery fabric, then the radius cutouts on it will be superfluous.

Assembly

Now we proceed directly to the assembly. On all parts (legs) we drill two vertical holes with a confirmation drill.

When drilling holes in the sidewalls, you need to attach a stiffener to the place where it will be attached so that the drill, having drilled a leg, makes a notch at the same time in this rib. Then the holes will match better, and there will be no skew when twisting the confirmation. At what height from the floor these stiffeners will be attached, everyone decides individually.

After the legs with stiffeners are assembled, it remains to attach the seat to them through the corners. Let's go through all the corners with sandpaper (first coarse-grained, and fine-grained at the finish). We put caps on the hats of confirmations and that's it - the stool is ready. Stools of this design are very well suited for the kitchen.

If you decide to make a stool out of wood, then you will need a hewn board without knots 800 × 200 mm 25 mm thick.

Tools:

• wood screws with a sweat head - 8 pieces (6 × 60 mm);
• sandpaper holder (sanding block);
• jigsaw;
• screwdriver;
• joiner's square;
• roulette.

Using a measuring tool, we measure the future seat, 200 × 400 mm in size. Then we measure out two parts that will be our chair legs. If you want to get a more elegant product, then they can be made curly. To do this, you need to prepare a template in advance. The simplest thing is to cut out a pattern from thick cardboard along the lines already drawn with a marker. It remains just to attach the cardboard to the wooden part and circle it.

Now we need to mark out another important structural element: the stiffener.

To give the product greater stability and rigidity, the jumper between the legs should have a trapezoidal shape, that is, one side may have a size different from the size of the other side, but strictly proportionally, so that 5 mm bevels fall on each side, for example, 220 mm and 230 mm. After you have drawn the entire board, you can start cutting the parts.

To ensure that all parts are cut evenly, the handle of the jigsaw must be held firmly, as it vibrates strongly when cutting. You can also cut evenly if you cut not along the line, but next to it.

After all the details are cut off, it's time to take on the sanding block. We grind the end parts and corners of the workpieces. Moreover, it is better and more convenient to perform grinding when the parts of the stool are not yet assembled into a structure.

Sandpaper 40-60K is mainly used when there are obvious bumps on the wooden part. Sandpaper 80-120K, when these irregularities are insignificant. Sandpaper 160–320K is used for finishing. Which type of sandpaper to use depends largely on the type of wood and the results of the cut.

And then came the long-awaited moment of assembly. It is best to do this on as flat a surface as possible.

1. We connect the stiffener with the legs, screwing through one self-tapping screw on each side. The smaller side (220 mm) should be at the top.
2. We put the seat on top and fasten it through two self-tapping screws on each leg.
3. We twist below one more screw through the legs to the stiffener.

The stool is ready. To give a noble look to your product, you can cover it with a mahogany stain and then open it with a transparent varnish for wood.

Making a folding stool

But what if the idea came to your mind to make a more complex element from the detachment of stools - a folding stool. The need for such a design may arise not spontaneously, but quite even situationally. For example, it is convenient to periodically take such a stool for fishing or for nature, or maybe somewhere else. The advantages of such a folding stool, first of all, are that it is quite compact and easily fits in the trunk of a car.

Now let's move from words to deeds. To do the job, we need:

• 4 wooden blocks measuring 470 × 40 × 20 mm, where 20 mm is the thickness of the part;
• 4 small planed crossbars measuring 320 × 40 × 20;
• 4 bars for sitting, size 350 × 90 × 20 (2 pieces) and 350 × 60 × 20 (2 pieces);
• 2 overhead cross-legs, size 320 × 40 × 20;
• 6 bolts with a diameter of 6 mm (length including cap is 40 mm), 12 self-tapping screws (45 - 50 mm).

Before assembly, all wooden parts of the stool must be perfectly sanded.

Assembly should begin with the fact that 470 mm bars are bolted together. We measure 260 mm and in this place we drill a hole of such a diameter that the bolt head and the fixing nut are recessed into the tree.

The fastening of the legs to each other should not be in the middle, otherwise the whole structure will turn out to be too high and unstable. Such a mount should be slightly off-center.

Now, through the bolted connection, we fasten the outer crossbars (320 × 40 × 20) to the upper parts of the outer legs. We do the same with the inner crossbars, fixing them to the upper parts of the inner legs.

We got a swivel that will allow our future stool to fold. Now, to the fixed crossbars, we fasten bars for sitting on self-tapping screws: two extreme, wide, 90 mm each. It is worth considering that these outer bars are attached as follows: one to the outer crossbar, and the other to the inner one, and they should protrude 15–20 mm in relation to the crossbars.

We measure 100 mm from the bottom of the legs and fasten the legs for rigidity. Now the most important thing begins - this is the fastening of two internal narrow bars 60 mm wide. It is from their correct installation that it will depend on how well the folding mechanism of the stool will work. Don't forget that these narrow seat bars are attached in the same way as wide ones: one to the outer bar, the other to the inner bar.

Approximately 15-20 mm should separate the narrow inner bars from the wide outer ones. In this case, the height of the entire structure of the stool can be up to 450 mm from the floor. This is a normal standard height at which a person can feel comfortable. If the stool turns out to be higher, you can reduce its height by inserting an additional bar with dimensions in the section of 20 × 20 mm.

Of course, the stool itself cannot be attributed to the class of ergonomic furniture. But it is always an integral part of the home interior. No matter what it is, this stool - small or large, folding or not. It is important that making a stool yourself, firstly, will save you money, and secondly, it will be a good indication that you have skillful hands.

Video

See how you can make a simple stool:

This video shows how to make an oak stool:

Photo

The world of stools is vast and varied; photo in fig. give only a general idea of ​​its range. It is from a stool that many amateur carpenters begin their creative journey: you can make the simplest, but practical and pleasant-looking stool with your own hands in half an evening, and in the future, stools of other types will allow you to master the essential subtleties of furniture craftsmanship, and not one of the products will be superfluous in the house.

Other pieces of furniture do not possess such amazing properties; This is explained, on the one hand, by the fact that the stool is essentially extremely simple, purely practical and comes from the deepest antiquity: wooden decks on which cavemen sat around the fire, these are already stools. For the same reason, a stool must endure everything, be strong, reliable, durable.

On the other hand, the simplicity of form and design allows the stool to fit into any interior and generally be at home in any environment. Over the centuries and millennia, this must certainly have been appreciated, and was evaluated as a suitable basis for embodying certain aesthetic concepts in the material. Such an exquisite piece of furniture as a banquette is also nothing more than a stool. Fanciful design and decor require the use of complex technological techniques, therefore, to make a luxurious stool, you will need a fair amount of skill and experience. It is much easier to buy both, working with the usual basis, and here the stool provides a complete range of products from completely primitive to technologically the thinnest.

Stools are made from a variety of materials, from rope to stone. A plastic stool has long been commonplace, and forged or welded metal is also not unique, but in this post we will figure out how to make a stool out of wood. The reason, in addition to the "primordiality" of the material, is that it a wooden stool can be extremely simple, durable, reliable, and at the same time have high aesthetic merits. How so? Well, let's go!

Tool

The manufacture of a stool begins with the preparation of a tool and a workplace. Do not worry, we will not immediately advise you to spend some decent salaries on a wood milling machine, a drilling machine, a planer-sawing machine and a lathe. Let's try to do without even a carpentry workbench. Maybe it will come to all this when there is a taste for work and income from it. In the meantime, we will limit ourselves to the minimum that will allow us to work from a table on the balcony or in the garage, laying a film on the floor so as not to spread sawdust. And this minimum of a tool should be useful on the farm in general, suddenly (everyone has his own inclinations) the first stool will turn out to be the last.

So, for starters, in addition to an electric drill, you will need a pair of C-shaped carpentry clamps for 180-220 mm (top left in the figure), one (preferably 2) F-shaped for 400-500 mm, at the top center, and, preferably, clip-on clamp, top right. They will cost inexpensively, and the range of their application, in addition to carpentry, is very wide.

Buying a jigsaw, of course, would be nice; it is not so expensive and suitable for a wide variety of jobs. But at first, instead of it, you can use ... a frame hacksaw for metal; they go on sale as mini hacksaws. Just do not take entirely plastic ones (lower left in the figure, pos. a). This is a tool for rare occasional use. Such a miracle on the Internet can be found for as much as 18 rubles, but plastic sponges are quickly eaten up by the steel of the canvas, and a “super-cheap” hacksaw is not enough for a good stool. You need to take a mini-hacksaw with a steel frame, pos. b. It will cost about 50 rubles, but you can work with it for a long time and regularly.

For woodworking, the canvas is tucked into the frame hacksaw “incorrectly”, with the cutting edges of the teeth facing you (upper inset in pos. b). Then a section of the canvas in the frame can be sawn across the fibers, along and obliquely. In any case, the cut comes out even and smooth, literally mirror-like; when sawing in a layer, only under-dried or newly damp coniferous wood is slightly shaggy. Thus, for example, spikes are sawn under the groove, see below. Again, it is “wrong” to cut wood with a frame hacksaw, you can start from the corner, because. wood is softer than any structural metal.

The protruding section (console) of the canvas to conduct a curved cut is slower than a jigsaw, but, with some attention and accuracy, just as accurately. When working at home, it is advisable to fill the blade, as it should be in a locksmith's way, with the ridges of the teeth away from you so that the sawdust falls down, clogging the markings. In this case, you also need to cut in a locksmith's way: keep the tool even, without tilting along the cut, do not lean too much and give a swing (working stroke) no more than 1.5-2 widths of the blade. Also, the protruding ends of the dowels and through spikes are sawn off with a “wing” of the canvas no worse than with a special flexible saw, which is several times more expensive.

Next, wood files - rasps. You will need 2 of them: straight semicircular 200x20 mm, pos. c, etc. cabinet, also semicircular (250-300) x30 mm, pos. d. A cabinet rasp differs from a straight rasp not only in its narrowed end, but also in the way it is cut. Both of them have a notch, of course, not at all the same as that of metal files; those on the tree are instantly clogged with sawdust. Depending on the properties of the tree and the area to be treated (end, edge, face), it is more convenient to work with one or another rasp.

Then, chisels. We will need simple straight chisels to a tree with a width of 6-8 and 20 mm. It would also be nice to purchase a set of 6-40 mm chisels, from 3-5 samples. Often, a wooden hammer is attached to a set of chisels - a mallet, which otherwise needs to be bought separately. However, a mallet, like a clamp-clothes peg, can be made with your own hands from hard, small-layer wood.

About stool sizes

The dimensions of the stool seat, as a rule, are taken in the range from 300x300 to 450x450 mm or, if the stool is round, of the same diameter. Minimum - 250x250 mm; sitting on a plank of 200 mm is already uncomfortable, after 5-15 minutes the edges of even a soft, but too narrow seat also crash into an extensive elastic “fifth point”.

The total height of the stool is taken, according to height, in the range of 420-480 mm. The height of a children's or household stool can be reduced to 260-280 mm; in this case, the seat is also made approximately 260x260 mm or 270-280 mm in diameter.

Note: when designing a stool on your own, it should be remembered that the contour of its supporting surface must be at least 280x280 mm or a diameter of 320 mm for a stool of normal height and at least 250x250 mm or a diameter of 290 mm for a stool of reduced height, otherwise both will turn out to be unstable. For decorative and folding stools, these values ​​can be reduced by 1.25 times.

Of three parts

Yes, a good stool, incl. decorative in the living room, can be assembled from just 3 parts. Drawings of a product of this kind (pedestal stools) are given on the left in fig. The 4-piece option is unsightly, but very durable, therefore it is more suitable as a working stool: you can attach a removable vise to it, drill, saw, chop, etc. In this case, it is better to take the overall dimensions of the 4-piece stool as minimal as possible, see above.

The sample on the left in Fig. - one of the very few types of stools that can be made entirely from chipboard with a thickness of 20 mm or more; the width of the connecting grooves in the details corresponds to the thickness of the material. The base is assembled on glue (carpentry, nitro-glue for wood, PVA or polymer for tiles like bustilat). Seat fasteners - wood screws or confirmatory screws (60-90) x6 mm. Screw connections also with gluing.

The fact is that chipboard really “does not like” loads on the layer and fastening to the end. In this design, the loads concentrated at the attachment points spread well and, with proper assembly, delamination of the material is unlikely. But on the heels of the legs, it is still highly desirable to stick overlays made of solid dense wood (oak, beech, hornbeam) with a thickness of 10 mm or more. Rubber - no need, it will stain and spoil the floor.

3 to 5

The variant of the supporting structure of the stool, shown on the right in the figure, allows, on the one hand, to get rid of the rather laborious and responsible cutting of long even grooves, which is especially important when working with a hand saw. On the other hand, it allows you to get legs of a rather bizarre shape without a significant increase in material waste, because. blanks are marked with minimal technological gaps on a board 200-250 mm wide.

The "highlight" here is that 2 of the 3 parts of the previous design (namely, the legs) are "halved" along. The base is assembled in a cross (diagram at the top right) similarly to the previous one. option, i.e. with gluing of all joints:

• Drill holes for self-tapping screws; holes for fastener heads can be omitted.
• Dry assembly is carried out and, if necessary, fitting of parts.
• 3-4 drops of glue are introduced into the holes for fasteners and smeared inside with a thin splinter.
• Apply adhesive to mating surfaces.
• Withstand details until the glue sticks on visible surfaces.
• Quickly and tightly collect the entire assembly on the hardware.

Also pay attention to the side surface, marked with the letter A. Before installing the seat, you can put on a round shell rolled from thin fiberboard on it. They put the shell on glue and small hardware (self-tapping screws, nails). After assembling and finishing the entire product, the shell can be decorated, incl. very spectacular stucco molding from polymer clay and get a truly luxurious stool.

4 details

Box-shaped stools-benches made of 4 boards (seat, 2 sidewalls-legs and a vertical longitudinal insert-support beam, on the left in the figure) are widely known and described many times. However, such a stool is simple and cheap only in appearance: for proper strength and reliability, its parts must be cut out of a block of durable wood or chipboard with a thickness of 40 mm and a width of 250 mm. Both materials are not cheap, their trimmings suitable for a stool most often do not go to waste and it is not easy to find them for sale or in your own pantry.

Meanwhile, an economic-working stool-bench can be made literally from improvised materials, scraps of timber from 30x30 and plywood from 2.5 mm as follows, on the right in the figure:

1. Segments of the beam are rallied into shields (leg blanks) end-to-end on glue, as described below;
2. One side of each shield is glued under pressure (compression with clamps) with plywood;
3. Angular grooves are cut out in the blanks of the legs for the same beam and holes are selected with a chisel for the screed from it;
4. Paste over with plywood the front sides of the legs in the same way as according to clause 2;
5. Assemble the supporting box of the stool on glue and self-tapping screws;
6. They fix the seat, which in this case can be made of plywood from 6 mm or boards from 12 mm. You can simply put the seat on the glue, all operational loads and so the box takes over.

simple kitchen

A simple full-size household stool can also be made from scraps of timber, plywood or chipboard, see fig. It is more suitable for seasonal dachas. When used in the kitchen of a residential building, the design turns out to be rather weak, there this stool lasts for 3-5 years. The second option for using the same design is a smaller children's stool, see above; the dimensions of the parts are then proportionally reduced, except for the width of the connecting grooves.

footing

The footstool, on 2 pairs of X-shaped legs, is also quite popular due to its low material consumption and good decorative qualities. However, in reality, it turns out to be not so simple.

Take a look at the sub-assembly marked in red in the fragment at the top left of fig. To perform a strong and reliable tie-in of 3 bars in 2 mutually perpendicular planes is not an easy task for an experienced carpenter; putting a dowel there will be unreliable, and the self-tapping screw in this case is outright hack: the double crosshair is heavily loaded and the steel hardware will go to tear the tree.

These problems can be circumvented by combining the beam and box-shaped power schemes of the supporting structure. We will leave the openwork of the beam frame in the most noticeable place - below - and we will achieve overall strength with an “oak” box-shaped top. Technically, this is obtained by reducing the angle between the legs to 60 degrees. Then, in order to maintain the total height of the stool and the width of the contour of the supporting surface within acceptable limits, the crosshairs of the legs are shifted upwards. The V-shape of the now asymmetrical X is tall and wide enough that a sturdy box can be made of 20mm or thicker pine board, chipboard, or plywood, see left in fig.

Note: the missing overall dimensions can be taken from the figure, it is drawn to scale.

The longitudinal walls of the box need not be sloped; this is done to reduce the visibility of the box while maintaining its maximum volume. If the longitudinal walls of the box are straight, it can be made narrower, so long as the V-shaped part of the legs fits inside. It also does not hurt to deepen the box by sliding its bottom down, the whole stool will only be stronger. In this case, 1-2 attachment points are added on the Λ-shaped parts of the legs, similar to the V-shaped part, marked in green in fig. The box is assembled on dowels (see below) and glue or on steel corners applied from the inside. In this case, the box is first glued, and after 1/4-1/3 of the time of complete curing of the glue, it is finally fastened with steel.

The bottom of the box is sewn up with fiberboard; under the seat, a capacious drawer for useful trash is formed: the supporting structure gives the stool full strength and its seat can be removed or folded down. The last option is better, because the stool, rearranging, is taken by the seat. The folding seat is fastened with a piano loop or a pair of small card loops. The lock in the lowered position is any suitable one: a tight ball latch, a hook and bracket on the underside of the seat, up to a secret lock, if you so desire.

When making this stool, you will have to master at least one joinery and carpentry connection - a half-wood tie-in, this is how the parts of the legs are connected. To embed 2 pieces of wood into each other, using a milling cutter, as they would say in America, can, and the youngest daughter of President Obama (grandmother Jane Psaki is a lady, they say, sensible and skillful). With a simple hand tool, a half-tree tie-in is performed by making cuts according to the markup and choosing a surplus between them. Working “only with hands”, it is necessary to take a closer look at how the layers of wood go on both sides and put a chisel to knock out the excess, so that the chip does not go deep into the mass of material, see above in fig. The rest is obtained with the same chisel, acting like a chisel, without hitting with a mallet, and, if necessary, smoothing the bottom of the groove with a rasp. It is not necessary to smooth it clean with sandpaper, rough surfaces on the glue will hold on tighter.

Note: Please note that the details of the legs of the foot stool are a mirror image of each other both horizontally and vertically, at the bottom right in Fig. If you do not have experience in design work or a naturally developed (convex, as they say) spatial imagination, it will be useful to first model the legs to scale or life size, assembling them from 2 layers of cardboard.

More connections

So we have already stumbled upon a dowel connection, one of the most common in carpentry. In the future, we will need an equally common thorn-groove connection. How they are performed is shown in Fig. There is little left to add to it.

First, when choosing a surplus from the groove (pos. 1d), it is not necessary to bring it to full squareness. It is better to leave the edges (short sides) of the groove rounded, and round the edges of the tenon accordingly, so the whole connection will be stronger.

Secondly, the spike does not have to be done on a router at all, it will not take much longer to cut it out manually with the same frame hacksaw. First, at the level of the base of the spike, the workpiece is sawn across along the contour by 0.5-1 mm less than the required depth, stepping back from the marking to the end of the workpiece by 0.5-1 mm. It’s also a small sin to carry on washing down to the full depth, but then a small narrow groove will remain along the contour of the base of the spike. If you don’t finish it a little, then the base of the spike will be slightly broadened due to the elasticity of the tree, and the whole connection will again be stronger.

The spike is finally sawn from the end along the fibers, retreating 0.5-1 mm outward from the markup. Here, for the same reason, the gash is also not brought to the end by 1-1.5 mm, and the excess is simply broken off. If the wood is straight-grained coniferous, the excess at a certain moment will crunch itself and hang on the fibers or fall off. Bring the spike to size and round off its edges with a rasp.

Note: when developing wooden structures on your own, do not forget - all spikes should be directed only and only along the layer! The tenon thickness for ordinary commercial wood, unless otherwise indicated on the drawings, is taken by default at 1/3 of the thickness of the thinnest of the mating parts.

As for the dowels (round connecting bosses), it is better to buy ready-made wooden ones. The cost of finished dowels is cheap, they are already chamfered and corrugated, which makes the glued connection stronger. Plastic dowels do not dry out with wood and therefore the connection weakens over time.

The main rule when choosing dowels is that their wood should dry out a little slower than the structural one or at the same speed; this condition is almost always satisfied if the dowel wood is harder. Drying out of the dowel is difficult, because. its contact with air is limited. The part, drying out, will compress the dowel; her and dowel lignin are gradually "soldered" and the connection becomes stronger over time.

The diameter of the dowels is taken 2.5-3 times less than the thickness of the narrowest of the parts to be joined; its length is 1.75 times the thickness of the thinnest part. The last dowel (if it is not through) should enter 2/3-3/4 of its thickness, and its remainder should sit thicker in the part.

Note: holes for blind dowels in thin boards are selected so-called. Forstner drill, see below, leaving behind an almost flat bottom.

Also a useful stool

Well, how do you undertake to make a spike-groove with your hands? Then it's time to take on a simple folding wooden stool, see fig., for a summer residence, garden, picnic. 2-3 of these stools will not take up much space in the closet and fit in the trunk of a car. Material - board or plywood. It is highly desirable to impregnate all parts from the latter before assembling the product with a water-polymer emulsion, it will not only protect against moisture and rot, but also strengthen the structure.

How to make a capture

Taking a folding stool with a round seat just by the seat is not very convenient, so the grip for the hand on the sample above is not a whim. In a solid board, the grip is cut out as usual: holes are drilled along its edges with a pen or core drill (diameter - 24-36 mm; distance between centers 95-115 mm, looking at the hand), and the excess between them is cut out. In this case, it is also convenient to use a frame hacksaw.

Another thing is if the capture falls on the junction of the boards; most often this happens in classic kitchen stools, see below. At this point, the beak of the pen or the pioneer drill / guide pin of the crown, when working with a hand drill, will definitely go along the groove and the drill will lead to the right. A conductor made of thick plywood or trimming the board does not help, the thin sidewall of the feather or the teeth of the crown tear it, and cling to the steel conductor themselves.

It is for such cases, as well as for drilling holes with a flat bottom, that the Forstner drill is intended, see Fig., Its lateral surface is smooth. When making a manual grip in the stool seat, they first drill holes in the conductor according to the above dimensions; left over! Then the conductor is applied in place, securely fastened with a pair of C-shaped clamps, and the edge holes are drilled. The surpluses in the details are chosen as always, the gap between the boards is not an obstacle for this.

real kitchen

Now we have classic kitchen stools in line. In the process of use, they get more than others, therefore, their design is carried out according to all the rules of strength: a rigid beam frame, capable of enduring all operational loads alone, and a seat that must hold firmly in place, but in such a way that, if necessary, it can be easily repaired or replace. Therefore, the seat of the kitchen stool is made of shield boards from cohesive planks (see below) and is attached to the breadcrumbs or directly to the frame on the dowels.

The variant with breadcrumbs is shown in fig; pos. A - its general scheme and the names of its components. The advantage of this design is the low quality requirements for the seat shield. By installing a pair of crackers on each drawer (this will not reduce the overall strength of the product), you can make the seat generally from separate boards, and on the original 4 crackers - plywood or chipboard.

Pay attention to the drawers, these are not just boards, they are all the time in furniture, and not only in furniture. The drawer in general is a part that properly distributes the load in the assembly and is itself capable of carrying the load. Drawers can be found in the distillation cube, pipelines, etc., which have nothing to do with furniture.

Also pay attention to pos. E, it shows a way to check the evenness of pairs of legs with diagonals; it is basically the same as checking the squareness of the foundation. The evenness of the pairs during the assembly of the classic stool is checked three times, see fig. right: in pairs assembled individually (left pos. and red lines), between pairs (orange lines in the central pos.) and the overall squareness of the frame (brown lines in the center). The seat is installed only after a complete check of evenness; sawing the legs of a finished stool is utter unprofessionalism.

Below in fig. - drawings of a stool for the kitchen with a seat mounted on dowels. Such a design is less laborious and material-intensive, because there are no operations for the manufacture and installation of crackers, but the seat shield must be firmly cohesive, see below. If fittings are installed on the legs, they should not reach the floor by 20-40 mm so as not to scratch it.

Note: spike cuts at 45 degrees in both cases are made with the same frame hacksaw. A fixed miter box (device for sawing at an angle) at fixed angles of 90, 45 and 60 degrees costs no more than 50 rubles.

How to rally the boards into a shield

The boards, which will now be the plots of the set (package), are usually rallied into shields on glue using special clips - wym, at the top left in fig. In wimms, small additionally fixed shields, as for a stool seat, can be rallied just end-to-end. Large shields, say, for a tabletop or sidewall of a cabinet, are rallied (middle row from left to right) with a tongue, in a fold, on dowels, dowels (lamellas), and in other ways.

Clamps in piece handicraft work are sometimes replaced with various home-made devices on the same principle (compressing a set with pairs of wedges), at the top right, and now more and more often with large F-shaped clamps. In this case, a rather laborious preparation of plots for rallying according to methods a, c, or d is necessary. it is impossible to achieve an absolutely accurate pairing of wooden parts under load due to the low local strength of the wood.

However, there is a way to rally the shield on the stool seat end-to-end completely smooth and without complicated fixtures, this is the so-called. twisted wyma with cheek pads; its diagram is shown below in Fig. Step-by-step rallying of the shield in a twisted clamp is carried out as follows:

1. The lower (according to the scheme) plywood cheek is placed on the table;
2. The table with a cheek is covered with plastic wrap;
3. Glue is applied to the edges of the plots and kept until tack-free or according to the instructions of the glue;
4. The plots are laid on the lower cheek over the film and, if possible, tightly squeezed by hand;
5. Wrap the set with foil;
6. Impose the upper cheek;
7. The whole package is carefully, without lifting or turning over, shifted to the edge of the table so that some part of the set hangs over the floor;
8. They start winding with a cord, applying turns as tightly as possible, but not quite too tight;
9. When the package is wrapped about 1/3 or more, it can be removed from the table and winded on weight;
10. The ends of the cord are tied;
11. Wedges are inserted under the winding, tapping with a mallet. 4 wedges are needed, they are injected evenly from 4 sides (2 from above and 2 from below), tapping alternately;
12. When the wedges stretch all the turns of the winding tightly evenly, the package is left until the glue dries completely;
13. After the glue dries, the winding, cheeks and film are removed, the set is cut to size.

The cross section of the wedges need not be rectangular; it is possible to use obliquely cut round sticks; there is only one condition - the wedges are needed smooth. It is desirable to use a slippery propylene cord, packing twine is suitable. The thickness of the wedges is determined based on experience. If there is none, then the package is first assembled dry, without glue, and the thickness of the wedges is selected so that they completely fit under the winding, tightly pulling its turns.

How about softer? DIY stool covers

Long sit on the hard, of course, unpleasant. A comfortable stool on the frame of a classic kitchen can be made with a wicker seat, without fooling around with breadcrumbs, dowels and a shield, see fig. The seat material is colored polypropylene twine and a smooth linen cord.

It is highly desirable to have decorative stools in the living room with beautiful soft ones, and it would not hurt to give a kitchen stool a gloss. But there is not and cannot be a stool on which no one would ever set foot. Or, at least, did not feel an acute desire to do this for quite objective reasons caused by the circumstances. Hence the conclusion: a stool needs a soft, elegant pad on the seat - a seat - which, if necessary, could be removed without fiddling for a long time, and just as quickly placed back.

The first thing that comes to mind in this case is a decorative pillow, see for example. video below. But the pillow can be accidentally dumped on the floor, and she herself will slowly slide there. Another option is a soft case. A cover for a chair or armchair is a rather complicated garment, but with a stool the situation is simpler.

Video: decorative pillow on a stool / chair

Covers for stools are made mainly of the following types, see fig. Pos. 1 - cape with ties. Sewing this one is the easiest, but the ties stick out in plain sight, and there is a lot of fuss with them, especially if the stool is for children and the kid has something to think with knots.

The next option is a cape with an elastic band. She can look great, pos. 2, and you can remove it by simply pulling it off. The structure of the cape on the stool is generally the same as the permanent upholstery: foam rubber, padding polyester and upholstery fabric from the bottom up, but there are a couple of tricks.

Firstly, it is better to take foam rubber from PVC, yellowish soft, pos. 3. It is not suitable for permanent furniture upholstery, because relatively short lived. But in the case of a stool, its other feature comes to the fore: it adheres well to wood, incl. lacquered, so that the cape will not slip to the side and under the angry rider.

Secondly, it is better to cut the cover for a square stool diagonally, i.e. The warp and weft of the fabric should go from corner to corner. In this case, cutting as such is not needed: the cut is thrown onto the seat (folds are obtained at the same time beautiful and smoothly fitting corners), where they mark where to cut, cut and sew.

Note: a cover for a round stool must already be cut; an example of its manufacture - see the video below:

Video: do-it-yourself simple cover for a round stool

An option that is also quite soft, original, beautiful and tenacious to wood is a rug for a stool using the patchwork technique, i.e. patchwork, pos. 4; see e.g. plot:

Video: seat mat on a stool using the patchwork technique

Finally, a knitted cape, pos. 5. This option is labor intensive and almost exclusively decorative. It allows you to achieve a magnificent visual effect, but, alas, a knitted cape will retain its appearance for a long time only on a stool that is not being sat on.

In conclusion: immediately aerobatics

Very elegant stools with divergent legs. It is generally accepted that they are not amateur products. The reason is drilling holes at exactly the right angle; see for an example in fig. drawings of details of a stool on turned legs. Here, firstly, you can not do without a drilling machine. A relatively inexpensive table-top frame for a drill does not help out: the shaft holder in it is too short, which is why, in combination with a plastic case, the drill leads by half a degree, or even more. Such an error is enough for the stool to come out crooked and wobbly.

Secondly, fitting the details of a stool of this design during the assembly process is excluded, everything must be done immediately exactly in size from solid high-quality wood. See the steel plate at the bottom right in the pic? This is a gauge for checking the diameter of the spikes. In this case, they, regardless of the design and overall design, are required to be round, i.e. You also need a wood lathe.

Now let's go back to the 3 to 5 stool. Let's reduce the size r to 100 mm, this is acceptable. Is it possible now to make this stool with divergent legs? Quite. Of course, they will not be chiseled and not quite round, but the grace and lightness of the stool will be preserved. This is what the aesthetic potential of a stool means in practice.