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A Pair of Simple Stools

Dave Richards

Dave Richards

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2,930
Location
SE Minnesota
I was practicing and came up with these stools based loosely on ones made for NK in Sweden, ca.1940. The originals were in pine but I made mine in red oak.



And then I decided to paint them red.


When it warms up I'll go get some lumber from which to make a few of these. I'm thinking I'll use dominos to assemble them. I'll probably make them in several different heights to use as plant stands.
 
They do have a cute euro look to them.

Is the center of the legs lap jointed together? I would be tempted to do that and have short tennons off of the top of the legs going into matching mortises in the seat. While that is certainly more complicated than dominos :D I don't think it would be to bad if you were making a handful and did the layout ahead of time.
 
Hi Ryan,

I don't know exactly but from the photos of the original, I got the impression that one pair of legs is a single board and the the others are two pieces. Probably joined with dowels. I expect the seat is also attached with dowels on the originals. That would've made for easy, inexpensive manufacturing back around 1940. I thought about a long half lap joint but decided it would be easier to do the dominos since I have the machine.
 
Makes sense. I habitually over engineer everything :D In this case there would be little strain on the joints in most cases so I'm sure that it would be plenty solid with either dowels or dominos (and the dominoes are more likely to last longer imho).
 
Ryan Mooney said:
Makes sense. I habitually over engineer everything :D In this case there would be little strain on the joints in most cases so I'm sure that it would be plenty solid with either dowels or dominos (and the dominoes are more likely to last longer imho).
Click to expand...

why do you think dominos will last longer ryan?
 
larry merlau said:
why do you think dominos will last longer ryan?
Click to expand...

My hypothesis is that dominos have more flat side grain contact (more like a true mortise) whereas dowels can expand/contract over time and work themselves and the hole somewhat oval (sometimes in different directions) eventually breaking the glue join. Up front I don't reckon there would be any significant difference and the failure mode I'm talking about takes years to happen, if it happens at all, so may be irrelevant for a lot of use cases.
 
FWIW, the legs would be glued together, too and that would be long grain joints. The seat to leg joins would be the only places where there might be any worries. I don't think they'll be a problem either.
 
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