Lately I’ve been grinding, honing and sharpening a lot getting my tools in shape for a bigger project and just making sure I’m getting better at it.

This has led to me having a sore back on more than one occasion.

While sharpening my dovetail saw I thought, “I need a stool” so I set out to build one.

Many of the basic cuts where done on power tools but after the basic sizing was done everything except hogging out the mortise holes on the drill press was done by hand.

Once the top was glued I hand jointed it with a Craftsman branded No 5 sized plane which was more than long enough for this particular piece.

The legs are through tenons into the top, which are cut 90degrees to the top (meaning that they’re angled opposite the leg angles). The dovetail saw that I just sharpened did the bulk of the cutting for the tenons.

Then cleaned everything up using a couple chisels.

The leg braces are mortise and tenon joints into the legs and joined together with glue and a pocket screw.

No plans where used, just winged it as I went (it went from a 4 legged stool to a 3 when I screwed up one of the blanks).

This kind of counts as a bandsawn box. The body is Brazilian Cherry and was glued up from 1 long board. After the initial jointing and gluing the hing locations where marked which set the size of the sides. After marking the thickness I went to the bandsaw and cut 1/2 inch off the bottom and top then cut out the inside “hole”.

I did everything but the cutout of the body, the jointing the original board of Brazilian Cherry and the holes for the hinge screws by hand.

Mostly using a chisel (3/4” and 1/4”), some 60 1/2 block planing and a bunch of scraping and sandpapering. The Brazilian cherry is as hard as a rock. Does not respond well to less than shaving sharp edges.

The rounded edges where rasped, filed and sanded to an approximately 1/2” radius.

Shellac finish done as a French Polish using a spit coat and pumice to fill the pores. I don’t use any oil when french polishing smaller items which cuts down on the time between sessions.

This was supposed to be done at the end of January, oops.