Moravian stool

[AJBaker]

I had some small bits of ash that my wife had bought for use as shelving. As shelves they were never great, but when we moved we took them with us. I had a plan to make a stool with them.

The inspiration was an article by Chris Schwarz on the Moravian stool, and a Rex Krueger video on the same subject. The basic style of construction is also quite common here in Switzerland.

The joints are the wedged round mortice and tenon for the legs, and a sliding dovetail for the seat. I had never done either joint, so this was going to be a fun challenge. Tools were all handtools except for an electric drill (that I barely used).

The seat:
I took the board, crosscut it in the middle, and ripped off a strip from the heart side that would become the battens. I tested an old Spear and Jackson 3.5 ppi rip saw that I had just resharpened, but it was a bit overkill for this size of board.
Part of the board had a big split, but I decided to insert butterfly joints (out of lovely dark oak).

I layed the battens on the seat and screwed them in place to avoid things shifting while I marked things out.

For the sliding dovetails I wanted to test my sliding dovetail plane.
This joint is much more common in the continental woodworking tradition than in the UK. This might be because nails used to be much more scarce over here than in the UK. Here, this joint has its own name (it isn't considered a type of dovetail joint) and it has its own dedicated tools. The joint is called a "Gratverbindung" in German, and there's a type of moving filister plane with an angled bottom (a "Grathobel") that cuts the joint into the batten.
For cutting the corresponding angled housing joint there's a dedicated saw called a "Gratsäge". Unlike other western saws, this cuts on the pull stroke, so that you can clear sawdust out of a stopped housing joint. I didn't have one, unfortunately, so I used a panel saw.

I drilled the holes by hand with a brace and bit, trying hard to keep the angles consistent.

 

[Cabinetman]

Interesting the way the edges of the seat are hollow? Can’t see an obvious reason. Difficult to gauge the size but if you are sitting on it to do woodwork I imagine it’s going to be about 17-18” high? Thanks for posting, will follow with interest.
Ian

 

[AJBaker]

For the legs I had discovered acacia fence posts that were sold at the local garden centre. They were about 5x5x175cm, and about 5£ per post. Acacia is ring porous like oak or ash, but has a rather yellow hue to it. It's extremely rot resistent, which is why farmers use it for fence posts. One post would already be enough for three legs!

I sorted through the pile of fence posts to find the straightest knot-free examples (though they're still rather twisted, they are fence posts after all...). I cut them to length and cut the round tenons. I haven't got a lathe or tenon cutter, so I sawed the shoulder, and trimmed them to size with a chisel. I had a hole cut in a piece of scrap to check the size of the tenon (an idea from a Rex Krueger video).

Around this time I had found and restored a Record No6 plane. In combination with a Swiss scrub plane, I used these planes to square up the the wood. Next, the legs were worked into tapered squares, before being planed to tapered octagons.

 

[AJBaker]

The final steps were trimming the shoulders of the legs, and shaping the grip. I had the idea of carving the opening into a moon shape, but it's almost too subtle...

After that, it was a simple matter of glueing everything together, wedging the tenons (with the same oak as the butterfly joints) and trimming the tenons flush. I cut the legs to about 16-17" high, and finished everything with linseed oil and wax. The angle of one of the legs is slightly off, but it's only noticeable from one angle.

For a first chair/stool I'm quite happy with the result, and my wife uses it every day in front of the vanity I built her as a Christmas present (more on that some other day).

 

[AJBaker]

Interesting the way the edges of the seat are hollow? Can’t see an obvious reason. Difficult to gauge the size but if you are sitting on it to do woodwork I imagine it’s going to be about 17-18” high? Thanks for posting, will follow with interest.
Ian

Hi!
No obvious reason, that was just the shape of the tree. All I did was remove the bark, and I left it at that.

 

[Cabinetman]

Well that would explain it lol, and a good reason too.

 

[AJBaker]

As an addendum, here some pictures of continental sliding dovetail tools. The plane is from the (now defunct) Swiss company Lachapelle. The bottom is sloped at a 72° angle, and the width of the cut can be adjusted. For crossgrain cuts it also has a knicker. It's basically a moving fillister plane with a sloped sole.

The saw is from the German maker Ulmia. It's designed to be held with both hands, held sloped at the same angle as the plane sole, and pulled towards yourself.

 

[Cabinetman]

That’s a very useful plane AJ, and the saw although a bit of a one shot pony must be indispensable for stopped housings, nice.
Hope you don’t mind me referring to you as that, if so you can put your preferred moniker on your badge, Ian

 

[Ozi]

Really like the octagonal legs, very nicely done.

 

[Chris West]

The final steps were trimming the shoulders of the legs, and shaping the grip. I had the idea of carving the opening into a moon shape, but it's almost too subtle...

After that, it was a simple matter of glueing everything together, wedging the tenons (with the same oak as the butterfly joints) and trimming the tenons flush. I cut the legs to about 16-17" high, and finished everything with linseed oil and wax. The angle of one of the legs is slightly off, but it's only noticeable from one angle.

For a first chair/stool I'm quite happy with the result, and my wife uses it every day in front of the vanity I built her as a Christmas present (more on that some other day).



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Nice job!

 

[AJBaker]

That’s a very useful plane AJ, and the saw although a bit of a one shot pony must be indispensable for stopped housings, nice.
Hope you don’t mind me referring to you as that, if so you can put your preferred moniker on your badge, Ian

AJ is fine, they're my middle initials.
This plane is fairly easy to find second hand, I got mine for less than 10£, but they often cost a bit more. It seems to me that it used to be one of the 'must have' joinery planes for woodworkers here, so they turn up regularly. You can also find them new from the German makers (search "Grathobel"), but they cost closer to 200€.

I haven't yet tried using the saw for a joint, but it's a bit tricky to get started. It has fairly big rip teeth (albeit with a thin plate), so it's hard to stay on the line at first.

I could do a thread on continental planes one of these days. They're mostly cheap as chips here if you look on the second hand market, and there are quite a few differences compared to the UK/US woodworking tradition.