Ishitani Style Stool

[delaney001]

So came across this guy on Youtube, and really like his style and design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJbqA1B ... e=youtu.be
Not sure if the style of stools he makes have a name or are a common style, but I hadnt come across it before. Really liked it, and decided to have a go.

Took some pictures along the way, but forgot at other times - usually the important stressful points... :roll:

So started off with what I think is Oak (open to correction on that). Had two lengths about 900mm long, so that decided the legs on my stool were going to be around the 450mm mark, less the thickness of the stool-top that they were going to go through. My lathe is a 1221 Jet, so it doesnt take much more than 500mm max spindle anyway.

Turned the 4 legs with roughing gouge. Had a simple enough process, marked up 60mm from one end to mark the shoulders of the tennons. Drilled a scrap piece with the 3/4" fostner bit and did a practice run on a scrap piece. Once happy with the fit, used the scrap piece to set the calipers. At the other end of the leg (the bottom), measure up about 200mm and tapered it back to a diameter that looked right.

Turned the top on the lathe, used a faceplate to hold it. I screwed the faceplate on using 6 screws, didnt worry too much about the holes as the underside is so rarely going to be seen. Ive seen lads do the top with an adze, but I dont have one or the skills to use one, so turning on the lathe seemed the best bet. Straight forward enough, turned out the top edge of the seat to what looked like a nice concave. Sanded up to 320 and left it at that for the time being.

Then found some material for the stretchers. I wasnt confident to try and use an X type stretcher layout as Im not sure how you go about crossing the two pieces over each other. So instead I just ran 4 stretchers around the perimeter from leg to leg. Two above and two below, seemed the best way and I liked the look of it. I turned the 4 stretchers in a similar way to the legs. Drilled out a scrap piece with a 3/8s fostner bit and then once I had a scrap piece fitting nicely, used that for the calipers. I dont think I have any pictures of this process, but it was very straight forward. Roughed out with a roughing gouge and then sanded up to 320. Only important measurement was the two ends had the right diameter, and that the piece would be long enough. So made sure to make them plenty long.

Next was the scary bit. I had to drill the seat top to take the legs. If you clicked the link to the youtube video, you'll have seen Ishitani drills his legs through the top and wedge-tennnons them, so not much room for error. The diameter wasnt too important as thats more about the eye and how it appears. It was all about the angle of drilling. To assist in this process, I marked out a cardboard piece to the same measurements of the seat top and drilled out where I thought it looked right. Drilled the cardboard with the fostner bit and then fit the legs into the cardboard piece. I stood the whole thing up and was then able to get an idea of what angle of lie I wanted on the legs. This was a great help in the process. Once I had the angle transferred to a sliding bevel, I used that to transfer the angle to the pillar drill bed.

I have a very cheap Aldi pillar drill, but its actually a fantastic piece of kit for the work I need it for. It drills straight down and doesnt waver. I know its limitations but it is very usefull. I did trial run on some scrap timber first and drilled out two holes the correct distance apart and then slotted in two legs to see if the lie and angle looked good.

So I set the bed at the correct angle and then clamped on a lat of timber so that I could slide the seat top into position and the bit would always be an equal distance from the edge or centre. This way, all I had to do was make sure and do was rotate the seat top through 90Degrees each time and everything else would be fine. I got all 4 done and it actually worked surprisingly well. I drilled 95% of the way through and then flipped the seat over and finished the job to avoid tear out. The imporant thing to remember when flipping the top over was to position the seat top in the opposite orientation so that the angle of drilling was in the same plane as the hole already drilled from the top.

Thats as much as I have for now.
Feedback always appreciated


Edit - Dont think my pics are showing, I used Imgur - any help on that would also be appreciated
mod edit to add pics - thanks Naz

 

[delaney001]

I might try again with imageshack or photobucket.

 

[Bm101]

Imgur is a few steps. Do it once and it's simple after that but it's not as intuitive as it once was.
Open Imgur.
Click the green 'new post' button.
Know where you stored your pics on your pc!
Click Browse in the new screen on Imgur.
Click on the pic saved on your pc and then 'open'
Imgur will have uploaded your pic.
Hover your mouse pointer over the image.
You'll see a new option box appear to the top right of your image.
Hover your mouse pointer over the downward facing arrow, this will open a few options in a drop down list.
Click on 'GET SHARE LINKS'
You'll see 4 options.
The one you want is : BBCode (Forums)
click on the blue COPY button next to it. You're bang on the case now.
Open your post on here which you have as a seperate window in your browser. Because life is short.
Right click and select paste where you want to leave your pic.
That's it. Job done.
Leave spaces above and below the text of your post and the image link you just pasted so it looks tidy.
For multiple pics it's easier to open a new imgur tab for each and then you won't get muddled. Upload all the images to seperate windows then just copy and paste as above to fit your post.

Use the preview button on here to check your post and that's it. No code, no brackets, nowt. Bosh.

Smashing.

 

[NazNomad]

Your code -

[img]http://imgur.com/Y35ZT7h[/img]

Added the .jpg -

[img]http://imgur.com/Y35ZT7h.jpg[/img]

They work now

 

[Sheffield Tony]

The legs look more like ash to me ?

I enjoyed the video, despite it being a bit power toolish for my liking. The scenes of shovelling snow reminded me of the BBC slow TV programme about The Chairmaker - Jim Steele. He was bemused by them cutting to shots of his wife hanging out the washing !

You might get chance to use the elastic band trick to fit the stretchers - with the legs and seat assembled for a trial fit, an elastic band round the legs gives a nice taut straight line to measure the drilling angles for the legs.

Keep persevering with the pictures !

 

[delaney001]

NazNomad - Thank you very much

 

[delaney001]

Imgur is a few steps. Do it once and it's simple after that but it's not as intuitive as it once was.
Open Imgur.
Click the green 'new post' button.
Know where you stored your pics on your pc!
Click Browse in the new screen on Imgur.
Click on the pic saved on your pc and then 'open'
Imgur will have uploaded your pic.
Hover your mouse pointer over the image.
You'll see a new option box appear to the top right of your image.
Hover your mouse pointer over the downward facing arrow, this will open a few options in a drop down list.
Click on 'GET SHARE LINKS'
You'll see 4 options.
The one you want is : BBCode (Forums)
click on the blue COPY button next to it. You're bang on the case now.
Open your post on here which you have as a seperate window in your browser. Because life is short.
Right click and select paste where you want to leave your pic.
That's it. Job done.
Leave spaces above and below the text of your post and the image link you just pasted so it looks tidy.
For multiple pics it's easier to open a new imgur tab for each and then you won't get muddled. Upload all the images to seperate windows then just copy and paste as above to fit your post.

Use the preview button on here to check your post and that's it. No code, no brackets, nowt. Bosh.

Smashing.

A gentleman of the highest order

 

[monkeybiter]

I like your method of continual test setups and trials. I think it will serve you well.

 

[delaney001]

Got the top drilled out. It came together pretty much at the right angles. Actually one thing I would have done different here is not put the shoulder into the legs.
I thought it would be a nice 'cheat' way of hiding if the tennon was a little loose. But all it actually kind of did the opposite, because when the legs are inserted at an angle, the curves dont sit flush against each other.
So if going again, I would just keep the tenon flush to the rest of the leg.
Anyway this is after drilling the top.

At this point I turned to drilling the legs. I didnt take any pictures of this step :roll: :roll: , but you can take that as an indication of how stressed I was over it.
Even though it seems obvious now, I definitely stood for 20 minutes trying to convince myself if I drilled the legs at the same angle of the top, then when when legs were in the top, the stretchers would be horizontal.
I dont know if that makes sense.... The angle of entry of the stretchers into the legs is not 90Degrees to the leg due to the lie.
Im sure it makes sense but im confusing myself again just thinking about it. Either way, I used the exact same angle on the drill for drilling the holes for stretchers as I did for the top.
The key thing was to have the two holes in each leg at 90Degrees to each other, and also to make sure and drill with the angle in the right direction - good god why didnt I take a few pics!

Here is a pic showing the 4 legs and 4 stretchers combined.
YOu can see the angle between the stretcher and leg is about 70Degrees but the lie of the leg compensates the 20Degrees required to make the stretcher horizontal.

Again I was slack on pictures for the next step... I cut the slots for the wedges using a tennon saw, and I regret this.
I should have used the table saw with some sort of Jig to ensure a consistent width slot. As it turned out the kerf of the saw didnt leave that big a slot which meant my wedges didnt really go down that far.
Another thing I learned on this - wedges have to be cut with end grain facing out. This might be very obvious to all, but it was only when I tried a test piece and the wedge shattered into pieces that I learned it...
Anyway, I cut the wedges, in the right orientation, with a bandsaw, and trimmed down the narrow edge with a chisel. Made sure they all fit the opening and filled the gap nicely.
Put the whole thing together, applied glue and hammered home my wedges. As usual stress and panic with clamps and glue and mallets and the like, but thank the lord it all went together.

I'll add more soon. The write up is more work than the project itself

 

[TFrench]

I really like that, looks fantastic!

 

[delaney001]

I really like that, looks fantastic!

Thanks very much. Its a lot of guesswork, but its coming along.

 

[Rorschach]

Looking good!

 

[delaney001]

The legs look more like ash to me ?

I enjoyed the video, despite it being a bit power toolish for my liking. The scenes of shovelling snow reminded me of the BBC slow TV programme about The Chairmaker - Jim Steele. He was bemused by them cutting to shots of his wife hanging out the washing !

You might get chance to use the elastic band trick to fit the stretchers - with the legs and seat assembled for a trial fit, an elastic band round the legs gives a nice taut straight line to measure the drilling angles for the legs.

Keep persevering with the pictures !

Ya its very power tool heavy, more so than I would like too. But there is something I really like about the pieces he makes. The style is very bare or something. And the videos are easy watch, there's no gammy music playing in the background.
I watched that Jm Steele video, he is an exceptional talent. Maybe I'm alone in this thinking, but I got so angry watching the video because of the zooming in on abstract images in the background and showing the rain hitting the roof of the shed while you could hear him working away inside!!! :roll:
All I could think was "JUST SHOW THE ******* MAN WORKING"!!!

That elastic band image sounds an incredible improvement on the foostering I was doing trying to line things up. I'll definitely try and put it in for the next one. Cheers

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Very nice - sorry to find fault, but the wedges in the legs are 90 degrees to where they ought to be - they should wedging against the grain of the legs.

 

[delaney001]

Very nice - sorry to find fault, but the wedges in the legs are 90 degrees to where they ought to be - they should wedging against the grain of the legs.

No dont apologize, someone else actually pointed that out to me. Never occurred to me at all.
I'm annoyed it never occurred to me, but I'm hoping that due to the wedges being so shallow, they will be OK.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

For the next time, I have one tip. Align your wedges so that they are oriented crosswise relative to the grain of the component with the mortice. So the stretcher wedges should normally be horizontal, not vertical. This reduces the chance of splitting the leg as the tenon is spread by the wedge. (Argh - someone beat me to it !)

But otherwise, looking great. Are the wedges walnut ? Should give a nice contrast.

Oh yes, one more thought. If you want to keep the leg tenon shoulders, you could turn the underside of the seat to have a wide bevel at the same angle as the splay of the legs so he shoulder meets fairly well all way round.

 

[delaney001]

For the next time, I have one tip. Align your wedges so that they are oriented crosswise relative to the grain of the component with the mortice. So the stretcher wedges should normally be horizontal, not vertical. This reduces the chance of splitting the leg as the tenon is spread by the wedge. (Argh - someone beat me to it !)

But otherwise, looking great. Are the wedges walnut ? Should give a nice contrast.

Oh yes, one more thought. If you want to keep the leg tenon shoulders, you could turn the underside of the seat to have a wide bevel at the same angle as the splay of the legs so he shoulder meets fairly well all way round.

Ha ya I imagine the wedge orientation must be bluntly obvious if you have experience with anything like this before.
I always assumed it was aesthetics that drove the choice between horizontal or vertical, but now that you say it, it makes perfect sense to put them horizontal. Drives the pressure towards where there is most wood/support.

Ya I think walnut, but im poor on wood identification so open to correction on that one.
Cheers

 

[delaney001]

So after letting the chair dry for a couple of days, the last step was to pear back all the wedged tennons. I really had no idea how I was going to go about this.
I purchased a compased plane and a curved spokeshave in the the hope id be able just pear them back. But with the amount of material to remove on each, this wasnt really a runner.
I then thought a kerf-less flexible saw (is this a flush cut saw) would be the way to go. This didnt really work, as when I pushed the flush cut saw against the seat to cut the tennon, it ended up cutting into the flat of the stool.
Then I had the most obivous eureka moment youve ever seen. I just started to chip away at one tennon with a small chisel (bevel down) and a mallet. It worked suprisingly well.
Pic is the saw, and my lidl chisel and home made mallet - yes I'm a miser.

So I clamped the stool down on the corner of the bench using two clamps and a scrificial board across it to prevent marking. I then simply chopped away, slowly but surely.

So this is one just before I started chopping

And this is it after about 10 minutes chopping away

I then used the exact same process for the legs, turning the stool on its side and clamping down via the seat of the stool. I actually used the flush cut saw here first to take away the bulk.

And this is the finished product, having run over it with 80 Grit sandpaper. I was gonna use the orbital sander but it was too awkward, a quick rub by hand took anything worth talking about out of it.

Up to 240Grit hand sanded

Then 2 coats of liquid parafin

All done. Really enjoyed the job. Only about 15 hours work in total. Not a crazy amount of timber or tools required (except a lathe is handy!)
As I said earlier, made a few silly mistakes. If I was doing it again:
Wouldnt bother putting the shoulder on the legs.
CUt the wedge slots with a table saw jig of some sort
Cut the wedges cross grain to stop splitting
Put the leg wedges vertical where most strength lies.
Debatable if I'd bring the legs through the top or not...

Thanks for reading.
First time putting anything on this site, which I have lurked on for a few years now, but I really think its one of the best ones out there for content - would love any feedback.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A couple of coats of Osmo, Danish or Finishing oil would have given you a longer lasting finish, but you might have problems putting anything on top of mineral oil. It tends to be used for chopping boards and cookery utensils as it's food safe rather than as a polish although it looks great when newly done.
I think whether you bring the tenons through much depends on the thickness of the top - obviously if it's only an inch or so you're not going to have much strength unless you do, with that thickness it's not really necessary as there is depth enough for a decent length tenon without it.
Well done for doing it and posting it. As with all these things, the next one will be even better.

 

[xy mosian]

Great job! Well done.
If you need to use a saw to trim protruding 'bits' , tenons etc., in the future a protective washer made from an empty plastic milk carton works well.
xy