A Basic Stool. Your First Woodworking Project

Welcome to make something I’m Dave Picciuto. Today, I’m going to show you how to make this stepstool with only two power tools, a jigsaw and a hand drill. Today’s video is brought to us by Simplisafe. Back in high school I made something very similar. This was one of my very first woodworking projects. And today I’m going to show you how to do it without any clamps. And just these two power tools in this video, I’m going to make two versions of this one with the jigsaw and the drill, and then another one with all the fancy equipment that I have here in the shop, there will be plans available for this. There will be a link down below in the description let’s get started. This could be your very first woodworking project. Woodworking can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be, or as expensive or relatively inexpensive as you want it to be. Just because you see some billionaire YouTuber using a big fancy table saw doesn’t mean that you can’t do the same thing with a cheap inexpensive table saw or even a jigsaw. And today I’m going to show you how to make this stool with only a hand-held jigsaw and a drill. I got this piece of Poplar from the home center. I don’t recommend getting your wood from there. I always recommend going to your local hardwood dealer because they can cut it and plane it for you. You’re going to find better quality wood, and it’s going to be cheaper. I know that some of you are not going to listen to me and you’re going to end up getting your wood from the home center anyway. So I designed this project around this piece of board, which you can get at home Depot and it comes in at nine and a quarter inches wide. And so there’s less ripping that we have to do with the jigsaw. I usually get all of my hardwoods from Kencraft. It is a locally owned and family run business here in Toledo, Ohio, and they do sell online. So you can check them out. To get successful cuts with a jigsaw. You have to have the right blade, don’t use an all-purpose blade, or don’t use a blade that’s made for metal. You want a blade that’s made for wood with at least 10 teeth per inch. So the right blade makes all the difference. We’ll go ahead and we’ll start with the top of the stool. So I’m going to go ahead and mark my length here, use combination square to draw my line because there’s no fancy joinery with the stool and it doesn’t require super precise, straight lines. I’m just going to cut right on the line With the jigsaw slow is the way to go. The blade of the jigsaw is going to pull it through the wood. So all you really need to do is just guide it on the line. The next thing I need to do is cut a slot in this top piece for a place to put my hand for that. I am going to use a Forstner bit in my drill and drill two holes in here and then connect those holes with the jigsaw. Just let the bit do the work. You don’t have to push real hard. I can see it poking out the back here. So what it can do is turn this over. Use that little poke out hole and drill from this side And we get a nice clean cut with no tear out. So rinse and repeat Top is all done. So now we’re going to cut the two legs out of this remaining piece of Poplar. The two legs are not as wide as the top here. So what we need to do is draw a line down here and then cut off one leg and then cut off the other way. You want to save this cutoff because we’re going to use that later. Before we cross cut those legs to length. I need to set my jigsaw at a 10 degree angle. So I have it clamped up in my bench here and I have a digital angle gauge, and I’m just going to move this until I get to 10 degrees or as close as I can get it. If you don’t have a digital angle gauge like this, you can always use a protractor. In woodworking there are always multiple ways to do nearly everything. And this doesn’t have to be super precise. Just close enough. I drew three lines on the board here. And once again, I’m just going to follow the line with the jigsaw at that 10 degree angle, I noticed that this first one is inset a little bit, so there’s support for the jigsaw. If it was too close to the edge here, I wouldn’t have any, any support there. So there is going to be a little bit of waste right there, but that’s okay. We could use some firewood. It’s getting cold. Because we have the parallel angle here. And the parallel angle here that is going to sit like that. This other piece will sit like that. And then this top we’ll go on there like that. And I have a nice little overhang all the way around and that cutoff piece from earlier, it’s already to the width that we need. So all we need to do is transfer it and cut that angle there, transfer it and cut that angle there. We can start gluing up. Then. One last thing I want to do is cut this little decorative V on the bottom of the leg. So now we have our two angled that are going to go like that. I have a line going down the middle and then a line that marks where I want the top of the support to go and support is going to go in like this. Now I’m going to assume you don’t have any clamps. So I’m going to attempt a couple of tricks. I’m going to put some wood glue on the end here, but leave a space for some CA glue or super glue, and then glue that into place. And that superglue is going to set really fast within minutes and work as a clamp while the wood glue dries. Now, this is not going to be a very strong joint like this, but hopefully this holds long enough for us to get some dowels in there in a later step. You may notice I have not sanded away any of the rough edges left by the saw. I’m just going to leave it as is, if this is your first woodworking project, don’t get caught up in the details. Just get to know the tools, have some fun, and then become obsessed with the details later. So I’m just going to center this on the line and just hold it in place for a minute while that CA glue sets. So now that has set after a couple minutes, and I’m going to do the same thing with the other end. So just add a little bit of glue and then some CA glue, commonly known as super glue. I’m going to do the same thing with the other piece. And while you’re holding that in place, letting that set, take a board, I’m just going to use, what’s going to be the top and just kind of set it on the bottom here to make sure that the legs are going to sit, flush with the floor. And that’s going to be close enough again, this is going to go up here, but I’m just using this as reference for what’s going to be the floor to make sure that it doesn’t wobble before we reinforce those weak joints. We’re going to let the wood glue sit and dry for a couple of hours. So now we need to mark the outside where this center support is, if you have a combination square like this, you could measure that right there and then transfer that to the outside. If you don’t have a combination square, you could easily just measure it and then mark your lines. So now we’re going to drill two holes right there and right there, and again, on the other side, right there and right there, and then fill that in with a dowel that is going to really strengthen this up, especially since you’re going to be standing on it. I have a 5/16" dowel and I’ve got the same size drill bit in my drill. I have a Brad point bit it in here, which has a nice little point in there. These are great for woodworking and we’re going to drill two holes. I suggest not going this way, but to hold it this way, that way you can see from above. If you’re going to blow out one of the sides, we can make sure that we are good. Definitely going to go into the support beam right here. I’ve got a piece of tape on there to let me know that I’ve drilled two inches deep, pull it out and clear out the chips. Every once in a while. That way you’re not pushing too hard because this joint isn’t very strong and I don’t want to break that joint. There we go. And then we’ll do the next one. So now we can throw in a bunch of wood glue in there. We can stick in our doll, wipe off some of that excess cause that was way too much wood glue. If you don’t think you’re bottoming out, you can cut it off and then take a hammer and pound that in. I have this flush trim saw. This gets a lot of use for things like this. That’s why you see all that glue on there. This is relatively inexpensive and it’s a nice tool to have because you can cut, flush with the face without marking up the face. I can take a scrap piece of wood, wrap, some sandpaper around that, sand that down. We’re going to do the same exact thing with the top. So once you have it centered on there, you can then transfer that line to the outside. So I’m going to flip this over. I’m going to add a little bit of glue. I’m going to throw a scrap board on here, add some weight, and we’re going to let that drive that has been drying for a little bit. I’ve got my lines transferred from the bottom to the side, to the top. And then I’ve marked where I want to drill my holes. We’re not going to go as deep as the other dowels Just because we don’t need to. It looks like I can go straight down and not blow through the sides, but I’m going to angle it just a little bit. Get rid of some of those chips, glue Only power tools that I use was the hand drill. And the wiggle saw. If you have any kind of wobble in it at all, you can take a file to the feet until that is gone. So now I’m going to make another one, but I’m going to use some fancy woods and all the fancy tools and equipment that I have available to me, just to show you that there are multiple ways to do nearly everything. All of this fancy equipment that I’m about to use is going to make this process a lot easier, a lot quicker, repeatable. I can make a whole bunch of these and batch them out and give them out as Christmas gifts. If I wanted to, I just wanted to show you that there are multiple ways to do nearly everything, but before I get to that second one, I’d like to tell you about today’s sponsor. And that is Simplisafe. Simplisafe is a robust whole home security system. That’s easy to use affordable and free from contracts and hidden costs. Systems are shipped right to your door, where you can set them up on your own. 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