Burr Oak Stool

After making my daughter a beautiful burr oak stool (see rectangular stools in the Things I've Made pages) there was a short piece left over of the 'rough end' of the burr oak plank, to make the seat for another stool. It took

quite a bit of hand scraping to bring the wood to a decent smooth finish.

I waxed the top after I'd finished smoothing, just to see what it would look like. That's a pretty piece of wood.

I needed to find a very special piece of wood to make legs fitting for such a pretty top, and I turned to an ancient elm table I had been keeping for a special project. It was a very dark colour and toned beautifully with this burr oak.

Here they are measured up and angled mortice and tenon joints cut to fit them to the top.

There was an old recess cut into the back of the wood where a hinge had been fitted, so this had to be cleaned out and a small piece of wood fitted and planed flush with the rest.

I made a bracing strut with angled ends and tenons, with angled square holes and fixing pegs. These slot into angled mortices in the leg pieces.

The legs get a bit of a scrape, to clean them up and show off the grain, and the pegs hold it all together. .

The protruding tenons are cut off at the correct angle and planed flush. The legs are shaped at the bottom and waxed.

With a similar curve cut into the brace, it is assembled. I think it looks very handsome, indoors or outdoors.