This is the hardest part of this project, at least in my opinion - Cutting the legs accurately to produce a ten degree splay to the legs. The first thing was to group the eight legs into two lots of four for each stool matching the grain of each set and deciding which would be the visible outward face of each leg, hiding knots and other nasties on the inner faces.
Setting my bevel gauge to 100 degrees to give me my 10 degree splay angle (90 + 10 = 100), I began marking out the legs. unfortunately, I got so engrossed with concentration I didnt take any pictures to fully describe the process.
In addition, I didnt think to limit my marking with the knife as I squared the lines around the legs, resulting in unnecessary marks on the show side of the legs - doh! I will plane and sand them achoice before assembly.
Luckily I noticed the error of my choices before starting the second set of legs and limited my marking to only those lines to be cut.
With the marking out complete and the waste clearly marked with Xs, I used a chisel to pare out the cross grain lines to make a groove for the saw. Placing the piece offset in the vice, I used the bevel gauge to make the cut vertical. My sawing accuracy is considerably better when cutting straight down vertically, probably due to gravity helping to hold the saw straight.
I started with the shoulder as its a short cut and across the grain, so a nice and easy warm up for my sawing muscles.
Before cutting the rip cuts down what I guess would be called the cheek, I found it easier to use my dovetail saw placed in the knife lines to perform a stopped cut across the corners of the cut on each side before placing the piece in the vice for cutting squarely down.
Despite having done this identical marking out and cutting process a few times now, for both my original Rustic Stool and my Traditional Saw bench, it still takes me a surprisingly long time to carry out this simple task. Eventually, I had four legs all cut and pared, ready for use.
Now for the other four legs - Rinse and repeat as they say ...
The next step is to mark out the four cut-outs in each seat top to accept the legs. Simple marking out using a marking gauge (for the depth of cut) and a square. I set each leg socket back from the seat end the same thickness as the leg.
I made four cuts to each socket to make chiselling out easier with less risk of break out. Using a small chisel to begin with, I removed 80% of the wood from each side of the cut out.
Finally using my larger chisel placed directly in the knife line to finish the cut.
After a little paring with the chisel and size adjustment with a file, I had two standing stools.
Still a long choice from being finished but at least they resemble something close to stools now.
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